And it's in, Ortiz has been elected to the Hall

[steve B]

Originally Posted by MINES_MINT

The excuses being made on behalf of Ortiz and others such as Bonds and Clemens are just pathetic in my opinion. As fans and historians of baseball we should have integrity and respect for the game and expect the same from the players. Unfortunately, based on some of the responses I have read online, I am seriously beginning to question the character of the average baseball fan in modern culture.

When Ortiz first spoke publicly about his positive test, his response was "my results leaked because so many Yankees tested positive". Why wasn't his initial reaction to the article to deny that he had ever used PEDs in the first place? No defamation suit? No libel? In my opinion that initial reaction shows guilt, and no amount of walking it back will change that.

Manfred cosigning Ortiz for the Hall is just another blemish to his already questionable tenure as commissioner, and if you don't see the spin he put on this whole situation I'm guessing you've never hit a curve ball.

If integrity and respect for the game is your standard, then that has to apply to all involved.

A leak from un-named attorneys, corroborated by nothing.

I'm not sure about the other players, but Ortiz was never informed about a positive test, something you'd think they'd want to do.

Along with not being told, they couldn't tell him what he'd tested positive for. Which is in many ways the single most important piece of information. I can see not making it public, but not informing the player?

If they had the info, why not also release what each player tested positive for? To this day that has never happened. Some things that could be tested for are present in some pretty mundane stuff. Many over the counter supplements, at least one cyclist got in trouble over a poppy seed bagel....
So release that information.

The government got the info, and at least for Bonds the actual sample. (Note, only one sample, when every serious testing program takes two.)
The 2003 program didn't find anything, but the government testing sure did.

So right off, either the testing was for the wrong things, or was poorly done.


Having integrity and respect for the game would not be anonymously "releasing" information that was supposed to be confidential, and that wasn't properly done, making it unreliable.