David Ortiz Thinks That The Yankees Were Behind His Name Being Leaked In 2009 For A Failed PED Test In 2003
If you know me, then you know I love a good conspiracy theory. I’ve wasted hours upon hours of my life diving deep down YouTube rabbit holes to research the most popular to the most ridiculously absurd conspiracy theories that the internet has to offer. This one right here is really interesting because, on the surface, it makes a lot of sense. But that’s only on the surface. Let’s dig deeper, shall we?
The 2003 test that David Ortiz’s name allegedly appeared on was supposed to be an anonymous survey of the league to see if PED testing was actually necessary. The names were never supposed to see the light of day, and those who tested positive were not going to be punished because the substances weren’t actually banned at the time. That’s why of the 104 names that were flagged as positive tests, we only know of Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa and Ortiz, none of which were suspended for the 2003 test.
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Manny, we know, tested positive twice after MLB had implemented testing in 2005 — once in 2009 for a women’s fertility drug, which men take to restart their body’s natural testosterone production following a steroid cycle, and then again in 2011 for high levels of testosterone. A-Rod, who never tested positive for PEDs, was suspended for the entire 2014 season for his connection to the Biogenisis scandal. Ortiz has never been suspended for anything other than losing his shit on umpires and charging the mound on Kevin Gregg.
So, Ortiz’s theory here is that when the Mitchell Report came out in 2007, which was completely separate from the 2003 anonymous survey, it made the Yankees look really, really bad and the Red Sox got off clean, so the Yankees wanted to even the score. Roughly 20 players were named in the Mitchell Report who were either wearing Yankee pinstripes at the time, or had at one point in their careers. The Red Sox essentially skated with zero big-name players being named in the report, and many thought the reason for that was because George Mitchell, the author of the investigative report, was a director of the Boston Red Sox. Certainly a conflict of interest there.
The Yankees had been caught with their pants down after the Mitchell Report dropped, and the Red Sox were looking like a bunch of angels. Well, not anymore. Two years later is when the New York Times published the story that had Ortiz’s name on the 2003 anonymous survey as being a player who had tested positive for PEDs. Definitely a little paranoid line of thinking to assume that the Yankees were behind this, but the motive is certainly there. However, HBT’s Craig Calcaterra shines some light on why this theory more than likely isn’t true.
Some added value from that conversation, however, was learning just how few people actually had access to the real list. A small handful of top officials at the union and the league office did, I was told, and obviously the government had it given that they seized it in their idiotic and illegal raid, but that was it. Clubs, I was specifically told, did not have the list.
We’ll never know for sure, but I strongly, strongly suspect that the source of the leak was either IRS/FDA agent Jeff Novitzky, who spearheaded the government’s investigation into PEDs or someone close to him, such as the prosecutors with whom he worked. Novitzky spent close to a decade outing and prosecuting athletes for PED use and, in my view and the view of many others who followed the story at the time, he saw his work as an almost holy crusade. As the above-linked story about the federal court smacking down his seizure of the 2003 test results as illegal, he was often overzealous.
The reporter who broke the story of David Ortiz’s positive test result was Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times. Schmidt almost always had the first stories about players being outed as PED users during that period and his reporting on steroids in baseball in general almost always carried with it a pro-government slant. As I said, we’ll never know for sure, but it seems obvious to me that federal investigators and prosecutors were his sources. I suspect they were his sources for the name-naming articles as well. When Ortiz’s name leaked, Novitzky’s investigation was on the brink of being smacked down hard by a federal court and, I suspect, he leaked Ortiz’s name to the New York Times as a means of putting a face on the story and getting public sentiment on the side of those who would name names.
Makes sense to me. Story checks out. But I’d still be infuriated about this if I were Ortiz. His point about the league never telling him what he tested positive for is completely valid. If any names leak that were supposed to be anonymous, then that’s completely on the league for allowing that to happen. Now that it’s out there, you have to give Ortiz the chance to clear his name if possible, which it obviously is. And fuck the New York Times for half-assing the story in 2009 in the first place. If you’re going to report that Ortiz tested positive for PEDs, then at least have the substance that he tested positive for in your report, especially when the league itself acknowledged that not every player who was on the list actually took something illegal.
“In 2003, legally available nutritional supplements could trigger an initial ‘positive’ test under our program. To account for this, each ‘test’ conducted in 2003 actually consisted of a pair of collections — the first was unannounced and random, the second was approximately seven days later, with the player advised to cease taking supplements during the interim. Under the 2003 program, a test could be initially reported as ‘positive,’ but not treated as such by the bargaining parties on account of the second test.”
In the end, I don’t think it’ll matter as it pertains to his Hall of Fame chances. This past October, Commissioner Rob Manfred said, “I think that the feeling was, at the time that name was leaked, that it was important to make people understand that even if your name was on that list, that it was entirely possible that you were not a positive. I do know that he’s never been a positive at any point under our program.”
The list was bullshit all along. Haters will chirp about it until the day they die because it’s the only thing they have to knock Ortiz, but the commissioner of the league is telling you that it holds no water, so it holds no water. End of story. Roll the video.