Ortiz News Out-Slugs the Trade Deadline

The Major League Baseball trade deadline is possibly the most over-hyped event this side of the National Football League Draft. For days, the constant procession of rumors and possibilities flood the news desks of bored summer sports anchors.

It can often be difficult to remember that there are real games being played at the time or that there are other stories revolving around the baseball universe. That is certainly not the case this year.

On Thursday, the New York Times’ Web site sent shock waves through baseball media by announcing that Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. The news immediately circulated, drowning out the previous obsessions with Roy Halladay and Victor Martinez.

Yes, for the first time since, well, Manny Ramirez, steroids were once again the topic of the day in baseball. Similar to the Ramirez ordeal, this revelation came against a relatively likeable public figure. Sure it was easy to put a target on the arrogant Barry Bonds and the snarling Roger Clemens, but Big Papi and Man Ram? Come on, these guys are funny!

Ortiz will likely not receive the wrath that guys like Bonds, Clemens, or Alex Rodriguez received for the same reason that fans are taking it easy on Ramirez right now. They just simply do not fit the villainous cheater role that we like to assign to users of performance-enhancing drugs.

How else would you explain the strange level of shock that yesterday’s announcement was greeted with?

David Ortiz? Steroids? No way!

ESPN.com writer and well known Boston enthusiast Bill Simmons nearly fell out of his airplane seat and immediately documented his horrific surprise.

The truth is that this kind of announcement should not surprise anyone anymore, especially in the case of someone such as Ortiz. We are all aware of the era that left an entire league’s hands dirty. It is an unfortunate truth that everyone who played during the time was and is a suspect. Someone whose career turned as quickly as Big Papi’s becomes a suspect on a larger stage.

As a Minnesota Twin, Ortiz never hit more than 20 homers in a season. His 2003 move to Boston was a subtle acquisition of seemingly little importance. That was until he went on a tear in the second half of the 2003 season and carried it into seasons of 41, 47, and 54 home runs in the three following seasons.

He has faced a steep drop-off in the last couple of seasons. The primary explanation for this has been that Ortiz is little, if anything, without the presence of Manny Ramirez in the lineup. This accusation seems true as Ortiz has not even come close to being the dominant figure that he once was since Ramirez was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Maybe the group that has been hit the worst by this news is the fan base of the Boston Red Sox. For years, Boston fans took pride in being the gritty, hardworking, underdog club that fought to knock off the privileged, white-collar New York Yankees who took short cuts to win and took championships for granted.

“Red Sox Nation” basked in the glory of seeing names like Andy Pettitte and Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez fall prey to controversy and national embarrassment. Surely the hometown Red Sox were not of this crooked persuasion. Surely their players were real, natural men who grew out their hair, took pre-game shots of Jack Daniels, and followed Kevin Millar’s every move in a bond usually reserved for fraternity row.

But then “Manny Being Manny” turned into steroids and female hormone pills and the almighty Big Papi danced on the line between mega star and drug fraud. The news caused many to take a step back. As hard as it is to accept, these fun-loving clowns are now in the same living room with Bonds, Palmeiro, Sosa, McGwire, and Clemens. Knocked down to baseball’s shame room from the brink of baseball immortality.

Unlike the previous names just mentioned, Ortiz is just 33 and his story has plenty of time to be played out in the national spotlight. However, Ortiz will have to become much more than the mediocre slugger that he is at the moment if he plans on making anyone forget about yesterday.

The steroid era has absolutely no portion or aspect that is cut and dry. There are plenty of quirks and awkward occurrences that make it possible for players to renew their names.

However, that tainted stain of public opinion never completely goes away. David Ortiz has some major repair work ahead of him.