Manny Suspended 50 games for PEDs

[Rob C]

Ramirez suspended 50 games for drug violation

NEW YORK (AP)—Manny Ramirez(notes) was suspended for 50 games by Major League Baseball on Thursday, becoming the latest high-profile player ensnared in the sport’s drug scandals.

The commissioner’s office didn’t announce the specific violation by the Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder, who will lose about one-third of his $25 million salary.

“Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me,” Ramirez said in a statement issued by the players’ union.

“Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I’ve taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons.”

This is the second major drug revelation to hit baseball in the last few months. In February, Alex Rodriguez(notes) admitted taking steroids while playing for Texas from 2001-03. But that was before the start of testing with penalties under a program agreed to by players and management. The New York Yankee star doesn’t appear likely to be suspended.

Ramirez is the third player suspended this year under the major league program, following Philadelphia reliever J.C. Romero(notes) and Yankees pitcher Sergio Mitre(notes).

Just two relatively low-profile players were suspended under the major league program last year, San Francisco catcher Elizier Alfonzo and Colorado catcher Humberto Coto.

In the past, the best-known player penalized was Baltimore’s Rafael Palmeiro, who received a 10-day suspension in 2005, the first year of penalties for first infractions.

Happy he's not with the Red Sox anymore!

[shawn_oneil]

With David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez on 2003 steroids list, Boston's 2004 title is tainted

Friday, July 31st 2009, 4:00 AM
Elsa/Getty

David Ortiz is greeted by Red Sox manager Terry Francona after hitting a homer Thursday.
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Tainted!

Does the news that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003 tarnish Boston's championships?

Yes, long live The Curse!

No, 'roids were rampant on every team
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* Rivalry doesn't mean Yanks have 'roid rage

We don't want to hear it anymore.

We don't want to hear the boos, or the chants about A-Rod, or the self-righteous chatter on your talk radio. The Red Sox are as dirty as the Yankees now, and Boston has nothing to lord over us anymore. People in plastic syringes shouldn't throw stones.

The Manny Ramirez suspension this season was one thing. You could disown him easily enough, claim that maybe he just started cheating at the sight of Joe Torre in his own Dodger dugout. But now your precious David Ortiz - your beloved Big Papi - is also on that 2003 steroids list, according to the New York Times. Ortiz said the players union Thursday confirmed that his name was on the list.

It's like Derek Jeter testing positive - except, of course, he hasn't.

Ortiz and Ramirez were reportedly doing it back in 2003, which means the drugs were still likely in effect for October, 2004. And you remember what happened in 2004, don't you? Your two best hitters took the Yankees apart in a historic, we-never-hear-the-end-of-it comeback. Ortiz batted .387 with three homers and 11 RBI in that seven-game series. Ramirez batted .300 with a .400 on-base percentage.

Except it turns out your dragon slayers were every bit as tainted as Roger Clemens (wasn't he a Red Sox once?), Alex Rodriguez, Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi. They weren't knights in shining armor so much as artificially enhanced storm troopers.

Ortiz smacked a walk-off two-run homer off Paul Quantrill in Game 4, that pivotal 6-4 Red Sox victory, scoring Ramirez in the 12th. He hit a homer in the bottom of the eighth off Tom Gordon in Game 5, during another comeback win. In that same game, Ortiz knocked the walk-off single in the 14th off Esteban Loaiza.

He slammed one last homer in Game 7, that 10-3 disaster at Yankee Stadium.

Ortiz killed the Yankees. Destroyed them. He always has. Now we know why. You know why, too.

It was all a charade. That long-haired, rebel band of Red Sox was no better than the buttoned-down white-collar cheaters in pinstripes. Neither side ever met a PED it didn't like.

This makes Ortiz a liar, like all the others. Maybe worse. You can go back to his recent quotes about how major league baseball should dole out stricter punishment to proven steroid offenders, or even further back about how he has been persecuted because of his size.

"They pick me (to be tested) every time," Ortiz told the Boston Globe, in 2005. "I don't know why. I don't know if it's because I'm a big guy, or what, but all I know is all they are going to find is a lot of rice and beans."

They found more than that in 2003, according to this report. When we revisit Ortiz's stats we examine them under a different lens. We see how he hit 18 and 20 homers for the Twins in 2001 and 2002, then erupted for 31, 41, 47 and 54 homers with the Red Sox the next four years. If he were a righthanded batter, we might say this was mostly a Fenway boost. But he isn't. We have some different ideas.

When the Mitchell Report first came out, it was all about the Yankees. There were big-name Yankees, such as Clemens, Pettitte, Giambi, Kevin Brown and Chuck Knoblauch. There were lesser Yankees, such as Denny Neagle and Randy Velarde.

At the time, a few skeptical observers pointed out that George Mitchell was a director of the Boston Red Sox, but that wasn't really why it came down that way. Mitchell and his commission chased the drug story for two years and ended up with just two meaningful sources. One of them was Brian McNamee, a former bullpen catcher, batting-practice pitcher and strength coach for the Yankees. The other was Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse attendant.

The bulk of investigative work was inevitably New York-based, just as the earlier BALCO investigation ended up targeting Bay Area athletes.

The leaks have become less geographically discriminating. Those names on the 2003 list are likely from all over the country, from every small- and big-market franchise.

And we here in New York can breathe a bit easier. It's not that we're proud of what the Yankees became. It's just that we don't want you to be proud of your team up there in Boston.

Looks like Fenway was as dirty as the Bronx.

You can stop hugging 2004 now.

Now I wonder if the 2004 World Series win by the Boston Roidsox will have an asterisks next to their name.

Shawn


ps. Now the whole A-Roid talk about the Yankees takes on a different perspective. How the masses take a 180 turn, but then again this is Boston.