The conference is starting.
Update: Ortiz says he didn’t know why he was on the list. He said he was careless with vitamins and supplements, buying supplements over the counter. He did say he never bought or used steroids.
Update: Ortiz says he met with the union in 2004, but was never told he tested positive for steroids.
Update: David reiterates he used lots of supplements back then. He also apologizes to the fans and his teammates for the distraction.
Update: Michael Weiner is speaking now about the leaks.
Update: Weiner is saying he will respect the confidentiality of the 2003 tests. He said players were told in 2004 that they were on a government list. There were 83 positive test in 2003, 13 that were inconclusive, and those results might include multiple tests on the same player. Therefore, not everyone on the government list test positive. When you see the MLB number of 96, it’s the 83+13.
Update: Weiner is also saying that the MLBPA would have challenged a number of those positives today.
Update: The first questions were on why it took so long for Ortiz to speak to this, and Weiner addressed that by saying the union held him back due to the legal ramifications.
Update: Ortiz says he’s been tested 15 times by MLB since 2003 and twice in the WBC and never tested positive.
Update: A reporter asked Weiner why the union is so up front with Ortiz and not A-Rod and Sosa. Weiner said the cumulative effect of all these leaks led them to make a more public statement. They had sent out this information before in letters to Congress.
Update: Someone asked Ortiz if he wanted to see the whole list released. He said no, he wouldn’t want anyone else to go through what he went through this week.
Update: That’s the end of the news conference. It will be interesting to see what breaks now. I wonder if the Times has more information, or if the Boston Globe investigation into the security guards at Fenway using steroids leads anywhere.
The biggest question to me is why the union waited so long to announce that there were fewer than 103 players who clearly tested positive. Weiner’s explanation — the drip, drip, drip of revelations — doesn’t satisfy me. That “103” number has been out there, hanging over the entire sport for years. What did the union gain by not disputing the number at a much earlier point? Or did they grossly mishandle this aspect of the situation, just as they did by failing to destroy the list when they had the chance?
Is the MLBPA stupid, or incompetent? Those are the only two possibilities I see.
MLBPA job is to muddy the water so as to provide players who tested positive plausible deniability. The fact that 5% was the number which triggered punitive penalties means that the MLBPA would have scrutinized that list ,looking for false positives or other reasons to cross a name off the list and come inder the 5%. The lack of a coherent explanation shows they have no intention of clearing anything up.
David Ortiz should have received a 2nd test 7 days after the 1st test when he would have been told to avoid any supplements that could cause a false positive. Ortiz is not clear when he talks about his meeting with the MLBPA in 2004 which would have been the meeting informing him his tests were in posession of the government and advising him that he would be tested soon (players on the 2003 list were subjected to an MLB imposed testing moratorium until they wee notified by the MLBPA)
Ortiz is a sad story right now. If you didn’t take any steroids and your going to deny doing it, why does it take you 5 days to prepare after the story is released, when you were asked so many times before then and had “no comment”. A-Rod took the right road even though the whole truth wasn’t revealed,I still respect him for coming clean.
Ortiz may end up going down as hated as Barry Bonds without the numbers to back him up.
what im curious to know is: why hasnt Manny said anything yet? ok so it took David Ortiz 5 days to address the allegation, and we were told it was because the Union wouldn’t allow him to address the issue sooner. Whether that is true or not, it’s still sort of strange that Manny has yet to comment on his allegation. Hmmm.
Pingback: Oh, Henry! Red Sox Owner John Henry Is a Spiel-Driving Man | MLB