While the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessey insists the mischief went down “before all the good stuff happened”, make no mistake — the Red Sox  have lost whatever (nebulous) moral high ground they maintained over their ‘roid injecting rivals in the Bronx.  The New York Times’ Michael B. Schmidt reports this afternoon that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were amongst the 100 or so MLB players who tested positive for PED’s in 2003.

The information about Ramirez and Ortiz emerged through interviews with multiple lawyers and others connected to the pending litigation. The lawyers spoke anonymously because the testing information is under seal by a court order. The lawyers did not identify which drugs were detected.

Unlike Ramirez, who recently served a 50-game suspension for violating baseball™s drug policy, Ortiz had not previously been linked to performance-enhancing substances.

Scott Boras, the agent for Ramirez, would not comment Thursday.

Asked about the 2003 drug test on Thursday in Boston, Ortiz shrugged. œI™m not talking about that anymore, he said. œI have no comment.

The union has argued that the government illegally seized the 2003 test results, and judges at various levels of the federal court system have weighed whether the government can keep them. The government hopes to question every player on the list to determine where the drugs came from. An appeals court is deliberating the matter, and the losing side is likely to appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

Ortiz is in the lineup for Boston this afternoon against Oakland ; he doubled in his first at bat against the A’s Gio Gonzalez and presumably a home run will result in yet another Papi curtain call.  If anyone’s paying attention, this is gonna put a real dent in the sales of “A-Fraud” tees around Kenmore Square.