...but
Big Papi started taking steroids after he was traded to the Red Sox.
David Ortiz, homer runs by year
And if Major League Baseball had found an impartial person to conduct an investigation into steroids instead of George Mitchell, a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox, then this conversation would be over by now.
Even Simmons admits as much as this:
The steroid whispers started quickly. By late April, every conversation
I had with a Sox fan seemed to include a "We need to mail Papi some
HGH" joke. It was an easy leap for a couple of reasons: First, his
power numbers leapt like Obama's Q rating from 2003 to 2007. Second,
he's Dominican, and more than a few of his brethren -- Sammy Sosa,
Miguel Tejada, Guillermo Mota -- have been in the center of PED
controversies. Third, they sell steroids over the counter in the DR
like they're Bubblicious.
That list of 104 names of players who failed a confidential drug test in 2003? You know, the one that had Alex Rodriguez's name on it, which was leaked, but somehow not a single other player was? David Ortiz's name is on that list. I guarantee it. And the only reason MLB won't release the names is because
Bud Selig is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Boston Red Sox.
