“You are from the Dominican Republic. You are an older player. Older players don’t get better. You’ve had injuries consistent with steroid use. You showed up on the list from 2003. You fit all the formulas.” So wrote the Boston Globe’s resident shitstirrer, Dan Shaugnessy, who on Wednesday of this week, confronted Red Sox DH David Ortiz with a tone that could charitably be called accusatory (“in 2009, you didn’t hit a home run until May 20. Now this. You are Baseball Rambo. What is the difference?”) While Ortiz denied his hot start to the 2013 season was in any way chemically enhanced (along with implying his interrogator might be, y’know, a racist) , on Saturday, he mounted a subsequent defense, this time with Shaugnessy standing an open-hand slap away from the former’s locker. From WEEI.com’s Alex Speier :
“Look who it is,” Ortiz said.
He paused for a moment, then noted — loudly enough that all in the clubhouse were party to his address — that on the very day on which Shaughnessy interviewed him, he took a test for PEDs. Ortiz said he would be sure to pass along results of that test to the columnist. Ortiz became slightly more animated as he noted that he’d taken 40 tests administered by Major League Baseball.
“I’ve never tested positive,” Ortiz told the columnist, who had referenced the fact that the New York Times discovered in 2009 that the slugger had tested positive for a performance-enhancer in 2003 (at a time when a) there were no penalties for positive tests and b) test results were supposed to be anonymous).
When the report surfaced four years ago, Ortiz disputed that he had ever knowingly used PEDs, something that he mentioned anew to Shaughnessy as he walked towards the clubhouse door.
“By the way,” Ortiz said, “let me know what I tested positive for in 2003.”
Sports journalists don’t seem to be as susceptible to being sued for slander as others. That’s a real shame.