David Ortiz Was On PEDs In 2003

What Am I Supposed To Feel? Good?

Since the A-Rod thing in spring, we've seen Many Ramirez suspended for testing positive to PEDs, and now we find that he along with David Ortiz were two of the 103 names on the list of players who tested positive to random tests in 2003.

Remember how they were supposed to be confidential? A-Rod found out otherwise. Now the leaked names are Ramirez and Ortiz. What's slightly (and I do mean ever so slightly) interesting about the revelation is that if one team seemed mostly spared by the steroid allegations of the Mitchell Report, it was the Red Sox. Of course, Yankee fans copped the brunt of the steroid circus as Jason Giambi, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Alex Rodriguez all had to weather the allegations. Of the four, three have come out (for want of a better expression) and admitted the use, while Clemens remains defiant in his denial.

If you're a regular reader, you know I've made peace with the steroid era. However, in burying that era, it's rankled that Red Sox fans have been on their little moral high horse for some time about the Yankees' players who got busted. In this light, it's nice to see that, no, the Red Sox were not magically exempt from the steroid era - indeed they were net beneficiaries as much as any other team, if not more. After all, uhh, count their rings this decade.

Unlike with A-Rod who had to have a terrible press conference this year, it doesn't seem likely David Ortiz is going to have one. It seems unfair, but that is the difference between being the first and the second in having your name leaked from a confidential list.

Jose Canseco as per usual has said he's not the least bit surprised.

Jose Canseco, whose 2005 book arguably started the cascade of revelations and an investigation into the performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, barely raised an eyebrow when he was told David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez are reportedly on the list of 104 players who tested positive in 2003.

“When you tell me something I didn’t already know, I’ll be surprised,’’ Canseco told ESPN. “And I’ll tell you this, Major League Baseball is going to have a big, big problem on their hands when they find out they have a Hall of Famer who’s used.”

When asked to name who that Hall of Fame player is, Canseco refused to divulge who he believes it is.

“It’s not about naming names,’’ he said. “I’ve never had anything against the players. It’s always been against Major League Baseball. I know who’s on that list, but like I said, it’s not about attacking the players. It’s about the machine that allowed this to happen. What I speak out of my mouth is the truth. It burns like fire. Just remember, I have never lied about this subject.”

..."If you were in the game in the last 20 years, there’s a 95 percent chance you were knowingly using something,’’ Canseco said. “I said 80 percent back then because that was the number of players that I knew were on. But that number was greater.’’

Great.

In any case, it's been a day of reckoning for Red Sox fans. Watching them try to talk their way around it is a bit embarrassing in as much as there were Yankee fans who tried to do the same. They'll eventually have to come to the same conclusion that we were all a party to it.

It doesn't make me feel any better in the sense that the other 100 names are still hidden and until they actually release those names, then there's going to be this on-going drip effect. And even if they did release it, it's grossly unfair to the players in that the test results were confidential at a time when PEDs weren't banned, and we're clearly judging the past from a different standard that was applied back then.

Then, it's also been unfair to A-Rod. But then we're used to the media double-standard there. In any case, the Schadenfreude is nowhere near as good as hoped - I don't hate Manny or Ortiz. I just like seeing Red Sox fans suffer, but all this is just not the same as making them sit out October.

Athletes As Role Models

Matthew Johns, Group Sex Enthusiast

It's coming to light that Rugby League celebrity Matthew Johns participated in a bit of group sex with the lads. He's apologised for 'it' though it is unclear what bit exactly for which he is apologising.

ONE of rugby league's famous faces and a much loved personality, Matthew Johns, is horrified that old claims of sexual misconduct in New Zealand made when he was playing for the Cronulla Sharks have been publicly revisited by the woman involved.

"I am very sorry for all the trauma and embarrassment this has caused for everyone, but particularly for my family," said Johns about the public outing of his involvement.

Channel Nine, which employs Johns as a rugby league expert, last night went public with his response to the yet-to-be aired allegations about footballers and group sex scheduled for Monday night's Four Corners on ABC1.

Johns says he had consensual sex with the woman seven years ago and he was upset, particularly for his children, that the woman was making the claims again.

At the time it was known that three Sharks players were allegedly involved in the incident after a preseason game in Christchurch. None of the players was named publicly.

But privately Johns had spoken to his wife Trish about the incident. Last night Johns fronted his usual Thursday night television program, The Footy Show, and spoke emotionally about the drama. "It put my family through enormous anguish and embarrassment and once again for that I can't say I'm sorry enough … there has been a lot of pain and embarrassment to a lot of people."

Awesome! Sweet!

What kind of man has Group Sex? In a day and age where we say, "not that there's anything wrong about that!" about gay sex, we sort of have to ask this question in order to get a sense of what the social norms might be pertaining to this heterosexual activity of group sex by football players. And it has to be said, it is kind of weird to want to have group sex as portrayed by these articles. I'm not sure I would want my team mates watching me shag a girl in a hotel room, and then watch them do the same girl. If I were more poignant, I might point out that I'd rather not have 'sloppy seconds' either; so this whole group sex thing has got to be a sub-cultural phenomenon of League players, right?

Then there's the question of consent in such a context. How do you get consent for something like this? How does a girl find herself consenting to this sort of thing with a group of footballers? I don't mean to blame the victim here, but it does strain credulity for Johns to say it was all consensual. I mean, did they pass minutes around and counter sign it before hey all joined in the orgy? how the hell does this all work?

Maybe I'm a little squeamish. Then again, I'm pretty squeamish about gay sex as well so I'm in the crowd that says "not that there's anything wrong with that!" with a great deal of irony.   Y'know, there just might be something *wrong* about it on my own personal level.

Didn't Seinfeld joke about this sort of thing? I think he said that if one joins in the 'orgy crowd', one must change friends, clothes and everything else, and then grow a mustache. Perhaps that is what that Reg Regan's mustache is all about?

Meanwhile Manny Gets Done


Turns out Manny Ramirez too was on PEDs. He was on Gonadotropin, which he claims was for a sexual dysfunction, but is something that raises the level of Testosterone. Great.

Manny Ramirez is always going to have this 50-game bust for performance-enhancing drugs hanging over him, no matter what he says, no matter whether he comes back strong in July, no matter that he says he tested clean 15 times in the past five years.

With his suspension on Thursday, Ramirez joins Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco and ultimately Alex Rodriguez and Miguel Tejada on the mental list of players who were dirty, or probably dirty.

Ramirez and his helpers can issue all the statements they want about his having been given a drug for a personal health issue and that it turned out to be illegal under current baseball rules, so he must technically take the blame. That is just not going to work.

Too many of us are beyond the giddy time when we could say, poor feller, he should have checked the label on the teabag while he was having a cuppa with the queen. They are responsible. They know that. Athletes spend much of their waking hours not just studying their opponents’ moves but also accumulating information on what will make them bigger, stronger, faster. These people could pass a pharmacologist examination.

It's quicker to count up the guys who have 300+ HRs that likely aren't on PEDs now. The currelynt untainted list starts at Ken Griffey, Jim Thome, Carlos Delgado, Chipper Jones, Vlad Guerrero, Jim Edmonds. Of this list,  I feel less confident about Thome, Guerrero, and Edmonds, but I have no proof whatsoever. Count me a Ken Griffey Jr. and Chipper Jones fan for them to make the Hall - until proven guilty, as we're finding out.

Just to recap for us, here's Jayson Stark:

We'd all love to believe that Manny's intent, in taking this drug, was pure and well-intentioned. We'd all love to believe that his "personal health issue" was serious enough to require unorthodox treatment that isn't even approved by the FDA.But face it, friends, if all the reporting is accurate, that would take the sort of leap of faith only Robbie Knievel ought to attempt.

We also need to recognize something important about baseball's testing program: Its intent is not to catch innocent people who are using run-of-the-mill prescription medications because of pesky "personal health issues."

Basically, the list of substances that can get you flagged fall into three categories:

1. Stuff you'd use to cheat.

2. Stuff you'd use to push the envelope as far as possible in the hope of legally enhancing performance.

3. Stuff you'd use to treat a condition that falls under baseball's limited list of "Therapeutic Medical Exemptions," such as ADD.

But there are no indications that either Manny or his doctors ever contacted the union or MLB seeking any type of Therapeutic Medical Exemption. So there goes that potential for an innocent mistake. And if that's out, what does that leave?

He was using whatever he was using to enhance performance. That's what.

And the rest of the world's response is hand-wringing and rhetoric. I've come to terms with the PED-infested era in my own way. I just look at it as one big load of PR turkey that has come back to roost. We were all doomed the moment we bought into the significance of numbers. They're just numbers.

In case you want to see a columnist do a mental somersault just to cope, here's Bill Simmons. Welcome to the world of Yankee fans, Red Sox fans. It truly sucks.

WBC Update 19/03/09

Why Can't They Beat These Guys?

Japan beat China 4-0 and then demolished South Korea in the round 1 match, only to lose a 1-0 duel with the South Koreans in the seeding game. In Round 2, Japan then beat Cuba 6-0, a convincing effort at any time, only to play South Korea again and lost 4-1. Japan then played Cuba again and beat them 5-0, which must be giving Fidel Castro indigestion and fits.

Defending champion Japan advanced to the World Baseball Classic semifinals Wednesday night, leaving mighty Cuba in the fog of another international failure.
Japan beat Cuba 5-0 on a foggy night at Petco Park to clinch the final spot in the semifinals this weekend at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
Japan scored two unearned runs with two outs in the fourth inning when Cuban center fielder Yoennis Cespedes committed a two-base error on Michihiro Ogasawara's high fly ball. Even though it was hit into heavy fog and Cespedes had a long run, he seemed to see the ball and had it in his glove before it popped out, glanced off his cap and rolled to the wall.
Norichika Aoki went 4-for-5 with two RBIs and one run scored. Ichiro Suzuki went 2-for-5 to raise his WBC average to .214. He tripled in the ninth and scored on Aoki's single.
Hisashi Iwakuma and Toshiya Sugiuchi combined to five-hit the Cubans.
Baseball long has been Cuba's soul, and the WBC and Olympics are among the few major forums it has to show off the country's talent away from home.
But the Cubans are in a funk.
The WBC elimination came seven months after South Korea upset Cuba to win the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.
Three years ago at Petco Park, Japan beat Cuba 10-6 to win the inaugural WBC.

Thus, the final 4 are Venezuela, USA, South Korea and Japan. It's kind of weird that Japan has shut out Cuba twice and can't seem to down Korea in the money matches. Now we find out the 2 Asian nations are going to face each other again for the seeding of Round 3. It's all a bit barmy and there's still a 1/4  chance they might play each other in the finals if they beat their respective opponents in the Semis.

Manny Dons The Pads

Nothing to do with the WBC, but this article came in from Walk-off HBP.

The made-for-the-media event took place on a sunsplashed field often used by the Arizona Cricket Club, one of an estimated 750 cricket teams in this country. The event paired two men who make their living with a bat -- although the bat wielded by Ramirez on Wednesday had an elongated handle and was flat, like a paddle.

Marsh is a left-handed opening bat who plays for his country and for Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League. Like Ramirez, Marsh is coming back from a hamstring injury that he said had sidelined him for about six weeks.

Marsh said he had been looking forward to meeting Ramirez.

"I've heard a little bit about him, but I really don't follow baseball too much," Marsh said. "I read up about him when I was coming over here. He's certainly an icon in American sport."

Marsh gave Ramirez a few quick pointers on the rules.

"It's pretty simple, mate," Marsh said. "You just make sure you're nice and relaxed. You keep your eyes on the ball, just like you do in baseball."

With Marsh standing nearby, Ramirez swung and missed at his first pitch before lining the second one past the bowler's ear as yellow-jerseyed members of the Arizona Cricket Club chased down the ball.

On the third delivery, Ramirez let the ball hit the wicket, which would have been an out in an actual game.

"That's an out?" Ramirez said. "Give me one more chance."

A few minutes later, Bhuta fired a ball that bounded behind Ramirez, who danced out of the way.

"Am I allowed to charge the mound?" Ramirez said.

It was a funny line, but cricket uses a shiny 5½-ounce ball that feels every bit as hard as a horsehide. Marsh said later he wasn't worried that the Dodgers' expensive property might take a ball in the noggin.

"They weren't bowling too quick," Marsh said.

Fair enough. Manny being Manny, when he was told Marsh once had a 9hour stint at the crease, he said such an at-bat would be just too long.  Of course, there's more to the story.

But, after the last pictures were taken, Ramirez turned back toward the field and said, "Can I hit some more?"

That's Manny.