David Ortiz tested positve to PEDs in 2003

This report was surprising, as Ortiz wasn't one of the guys whose size increased noticeably during any point in his career. But the problem with the term 'performance-enhancing drugs' is that it could mean a pretty broad range of substances. I don't know if they tested strictly for drugs that increased strength, or if they also tested for things like ephedrine as they do in the NFL.

Also, Nomar had an interesting comment on the matter. Since the tests in 2003 were supposed to be anonymous, and since they were conducting the tests to guage whether or not to implement mandatory testing, a lot of guys just told the testers to put them down as positive. They apparently had to have something like at least 4.5% tests turn up positive for testing to be mandated. So guys who didn't use but wanted mandatory testing would just say they used in hopes of achieving the required percentage. Now, I don't know how true this is, or how often it actually occured, but it was an interesting angle nonetheless.

 

Beginning at 00:42, what he "said":

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBIoRFm0980[/media]

 

The impression that I got was that the guys who are clean want to keep the game clean. It's understandable. If I were a clean player, I'd be P.O.'d at all the dirty guys making the rest of us look bad.

 

the guy went from unwanted (Minnesota just let him go) to receiving MVP votes in one offseason.

 

if you were going to submit a career arc of the one person steroids would epitomize, ortiz would be it.