When Will It Stop? Ortiz Tested Positive in 2003

The New York Times is reporting that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were on the juice in 2003. Lawyers involved in a federal investigation of the distribution of illegal performance enhancing drugs amongst professional athletes are the source of the news.

The tests date back to 2003 because it was during that season major league baseball first tested for steroids after doping controversies involving home run mashers such as Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds began putting serious public – and political – pressure on the league to clean themselves up. The testing was supposed to be anonymous and used only to gauge the presence of steroids in the sport. If the results showed that more than 5 percent were doping then they’d start taking action. The league found that 104 players, more than 7 percent, were using illegal steroids and the evidence was never destroyed. Turns out that Manny and Big Papi were part of it.

Boston’s beloved Ortiz now joins the ‘Asterisk Club’ along with Mark McGuire, Alex Rodriguez, Jason Giambi, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Jose Canseco, Miguel Tejada, and Manny. He told the Times, “I’m not talking about that any more, I have no comment.”

There still remain around 100 names on the list. The steady tick-tock of released names from this one test (Bonds, Sosa, A-Rod, Jason Grimsley, David Segui, now Manny and Ortiz) must have many players a tad nervous of what’s to come.

In the spring of last year Ortiz told the Boston Herald that he couldn’t be sure if he’d used performance enhancing drugs when he was much younger in the Dominican Republic. “I used to buy a protein shake in my country. I don’t do that anymore because they don’t have the approval for that here, so I know that, so I’m off buying things at the GNC back in the Dominican (Republic). But it can happen anytime, it can happen. I don’t know. I don’t know if I drank something in my youth, not knowing it,” he told the paper.

Later in the interview with the Herald he said, “I should use steroids just to see what’s going on. Nah. I have a good family. I want to see my kids learn and develop. I think I’m having an OK career. So, I take a lot of Advils, but I think I’m going to stop taking them. They say it (expletive) your liver.”

In Februrary of this year, Ortiz spoke with Peter Gammons of ESPN and said, “I would suggest everybody get tested, not random, everybody. You go team by team. You test everybody three, four times a year and that’s about it.” If someone were to test positive he recommended to, “ban ‘em for the whole year.”

Ortiz has not tested positive for banned substances since rules were put into place in 2004, but Manny infamously did earlier this year.

Stay tuned as the story is only growing.