According to the New York Times, Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were among the roughly 100 Major League Baseball players to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, according to lawyers with knowledge of the results.
In the story, the Times says:
The information about Ramirez and Ortiz emerged through interviews with multiple lawyers and others connected to the pending litigation. The lawyers spoke anonymously because the testing information is under seal by a court order. The lawyers did not identify which drugs were detected.
Unlike Ramirez, who recently served a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy, Ortiz had not previously been linked to performance-enhancing substances.
Scott Boras, the agent for Ramirez, would not comment Thursday.
I don’t really know what to think anymore about any of this, other than I wouldn’t be surprised no matter whose name showed up on that list.
What really gets me, though, is the 2003 test was supposed to be anonymous, as baseball was on a fact-finding mission to get a handle on the steroid propblem. The players agreed to the testing, knowing the individual results would never be made public.
I’m not condoning anything any user did, but at the same time anonymous is supposed to be anonymous, and as we’re now finding out, that wasn’t true at all.
