The worst thing about all this failed PED test business is that ESPN becomes even less watchable than usual. “SportsCenter” and “First Take” are in the veritable sports news kitchen, baking up their usual recipes of speculation and conjecture, which is kinda redundant for us since I wrote about this yesterday, you read about it yesterday, and it just feels like the monolith is a day behind on this.

And the big angle that ESPN is taking deals with Ortiz’s denial and subsequent tough talk with regard to his thoughts on punishing players that test positive for PEDs. But what else would he do? If he’s on them, he’ll talk the talk and act like he’s not, like his one of the guys whose legacy was besmirched by this whole thing. If he’s not (and since nobody knows for what the players were being tested in 2003), he would have spoken out in much the same way.

By the way, today is baseball’s trade deadline, though it doesn’t seem that Blue Jays pitcher will be leaving Toronto (the Jays are asking for too much). Hey, I know! Let’s talk about steroids some more! Or beat in the side of my skull with an aluminum bat. I can’t tell the difference. Don’t forget to turn that right hand over.

People are clamoring for the list of the 104 Major League players that tested positive for steroids in 2003 to be made public, but it will never happen. Because the “lawyers with knowledge of the results” are surely getting his rocks off by leaking these names in such a piecemeal manner, as they’ve now done by leaking David Ortiz’s and former Red Sox outfielder Manny Ramirez’s test results from 2003.

Never mind the fact that the list was simply an audit to determine whether or not MLB would implement any legitimate testing, and not an actual test itself. Never mind that the list was sealed before being seized by federal regulators. Never mind that there are still 97 players on that 2003 list that are still anonymous, giving armchair pundits plenty of pasture to speculate about “who was dirty.”

We don’t know who was on what, or when, which makes these “revelations” completely worthless. Is Big Papi’s legacy in question now? It depends; do you assume that every pitcher he faced in 2003 was clean? Do you assume that only a select few of Ortiz’s rival hitters were illegally medicated? It doesn’t seem to matter now, because “lawyers with knowledge of the results” decided to point the invisible finger at Ortiz, and outlets like the New York Times and ESPN are going to suck that finger until milk comes out of it.

This whole thing is just out of hand. You can’t stick the syringe back in baseball’s ass and suck all the PEDs out of the game, and yet that’s what everyone covering the game is trying to do, and will continue to do, even as these guys become eligible for the hall. How can you point a finger and ostracize one guy when, as far as anyone knows, everyone sharing the field with him could be doing the exact same thing?

On the heels of a report that Red Sox players were taught how to use steroids under the Duquette regime, beloved Sox DH David Ortiz (not pictured) is denying that any of Manny Ramirez’s alleged steroid use would have been connected with the team. From Y! Sports, via Rumors and Rants:

“This situation has shocked me. That’s not the guy that I know,” the Boston Red Sox designated hitter said before Tuesday night’s game against the Los Angeles Angels. “The only thing I know about him is that he’s a guy who works hard every day and gets prepared to play the game.”[...]

“I’m serious. Manny is on his own, always. When we were here playing together, it would have been, `OK, let’s meet around noon so we can have lunch and then go to the field.’ He’d say OK, and the next thing you know, you’d be calling his phone in the room and you wouldn’t reach him—and you just talked to him an hour ago. But that’s him.”

It’s also odd that Manny’s first spring training away from Boston is the first time he happens to flunk a steroid test. Also odd, when a woman’s clearly upset about something and you ask what it is and she says, “Nothing.” It’s not nothing. I know nothing. It’s what I do everyday. At least that’s what I tell my parole officer.

|img from AfroJacks|

Red Sox first baseman Sean Casey held an interview with teammate Big Father (that’s the translation guys!!) David Ortiz asking the slugger to name his favorite movies. True to his Latin American background, Ortiz had to go with Scarface first, lest he be banned from mall airbrush T-shirt stands the world over. Nice of him to specify which version, because I really had him pegged as a big fan of the 1932 Howard Hawks original. Of course, he couldn’t do the same with his fifth favorite, The Pink Panther. Well, which is it: Peter Sellers or Steve Martin? I kid, of course. Gotta go with Martin iteration. Beyonce adds so much to any comedy.

[Red Sox Monster]

this SI gallery via Hot Clicks; other photos by Marion Curtis/Startraks)

UPDATE: Now with non-Captain Morgany Menounos-Keibler goodness.  Not to be confused with Menounos cobbler, which I imagine is delicious.

Yesterday David Ortiz became an American citizen, so he could torment John Rocker by enjoying the full rights afforded by the Constitution while speaking only un tooch of de Ingles. Apparently, inclusion in the U.S. of Gay that is Red Sox Nation doesn't stack up to being an full-blooded American.

Ortiz joined 226 immigrants from 57 countries as they raised their right hands and took the Oath of Citizenship at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester.

"My whole family, kids, and everyone have been born here," Ortiz, who was born in 1975 in Santo Domingo, told reporters afterward. "It's a great country – proud to be here, now proud to be a part of it."

Ortiz's wife, American-born Tiffany, added: "It's a big deal for him. It's really important, and I'm really proud of him."

When pressed by reporters, Ortiz did not endorse a presidential candidate.

Sweet Jiminy Christmas Ape, reporters are annoying as hell. "Hey, slugger, congrats on becoming a citizen, care to say something controversial for me to print?" Ortiz was surely disappointed to discover citizenship doesn't allow one to hunt members of the media for sport like in the Dominican Republic. Which truly is the greater nation?