Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, the sluggers who helped the Boston Red Sox end an 86-year World Series championship drought and capture another title three years later, were among the roughly 100 Major League Baseball players to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, lawyers who know the results said.
Some of baseball’s most cherished storylines of the past decade have been tainted by performance-enhancing drugs, including the accomplishments of record-setting home run hitters and dominating pitchers. Now, players with Boston’s championship teams of 2004 and 2007 have also been linked to doping.
Baseball first tested for steroids in 2003, and the results from that season were supposed to remain anonymous. But the results were never destroyed and the first batch of positives has come to be known among fans and people in baseball as “the list.”
The information was seized by federal agents and the test results remain the subject of litigation between the baseball players union and the government.
Five others have been tied to positive tests from that year: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Jason Grimsley and David Segui. Bonds, baseball’s career home runs leader, was not on the original list, although federal agents seized his 2003 sample and had it retested. Those results showed the presence of steroids, court documents show.
The information about Ramirez and Ortiz emerged through interviews with lawyers and others connected to the pending litigation. The lawyers spoke anonymously because the testing information was under seal by a court order. The lawyers did not identify which drugs were detected.
Ramirez, who is now with the Dodgers, recently served a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy. Ortiz had not previously been linked to performance-enhancing substances.
Asked about the 2003 drug test before the Red Sox played Oakland on Thursday in Boston, Ortiz shrugged and said: “I’m not talking about that anymore. I have no comment.”
After the game, he issued a statement: “I have already contacted the players association to confirm if this report is true. I have just been told that the report is true. Based on the way I have lived my life, I am surprised to learn I tested positive.”
But the Mitchell report, which was released in December 2007, said that players who tested positive in 2003 were notified by the union after the tests were seized.
In St Louis, where the Dodgers were playing the Cardinals, Ramirez told reporters that he would not discuss the drug test, the Los Angeles Times said.
“You guys want to talk about the game, what is happening now, we can sit down and talk for two hours,” Ramirez said. “If you want more information, call the union.”
Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, the sluggers who helped the Boston Red Sox end an 86-year World Series championship drought and capture another title three years later, were among the roughly 100 Major League Baseball players to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, lawyers who know the results said.
Some of baseball’s most cherished storylines of the past decade have been tainted by performance-enhancing drugs, including the accomplishments of record-setting home run hitters and dominating pitchers. Now, players with Boston’s championship teams of 2004 and 2007 have also been linked to doping.
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