There is devastation in Red Sox Nation tonight....
Add Big Sloppi to the list of 103 that tested positive for Preformance-Enhancing drugs back in 2003.
As far as the whole PED deal is concerned, I prefer not to take a side...Do steroids make one a better athlete? Yes. Do they speed up the recovery process? You bet. Do they make you hit the ball farther? No question.
Do they make you able to physically hit a baseball??...Not at all.
What gripes me about Papi is that this is a man that once came out and said that "all players caught taking PED's should be suspended for a full year."
Feel like taking the year off Sloppi?
When you glance at the numbers, Ortiz came to the Sox for the 2003 season after setting his career-highs for Home Runs and RBI's with the Twinkies....20 HR...75 RBI...
On July 2nd 2003, Ortiz was in a platoon and had only 4 HR and 37 RBI to his name...he finished the season with a roar and ended up with 31 HR and 101 RBI...
for the next 3 seasons, Papi racked in 41, 47 and 54 Bombs respectively...that's kind of a jump don't you think?
Fast forward to 2008 when he struggled to hit 23...or even to earlier this year when he had trouble just hitting his first..
Despite the facts being out there that the hero of Red Sox Nation is a phony and a cheater, he is still beloved...The cheers he was given after hitting a 3-run Bomb today shows me that fans could care less about cheaters...and more about winning...
Which leads me to my next target...L.A's second son, (besides Kobe)Manny Ramirez...
This man was not only another alum of the 2003 PED list, but he is also fresh off of being suspended for 50 games because he tested positive for a fertility drug!
How do the fans react? They tried to vote him into the All-Star game and they gave him a bobblehead night...(as a matter of fact, they are planning a second one because the first was so successful)
On his very own bobblehead night...Man Ram came up as a pinch-hitter and belted a Grand Slam that sent L.A into such a frenzy that you'd think Kobe just walked in with the finals trophy.
You see the same situation in the Bronx with A-Rod...yes there are several fans that hate him for how he acts and what he has done in the past...but I don't hear many fans complain when he puts a ball into the bleachers....
The bottom line is this...to be quite frank, baseball fans are so sick of hearing the word STEROIDS that they have very simply washed their hands of the matter and moved on..
But is it going to be easy for fans of the nation to move on knowing that the two best hitters of their two championship teams in '04 and '07 were cheating?
Tough pill to swallow Boston....
I just wish that this happened to the Yankees since I am a Mets fan. I love your style of writing Josh. It is very easy to read, informative, and to the point. You put all the necessary stats and information into each article. I liked this a lot. I think it will be hard for the fans to stomach this. Then again, who doesn't cheat nowadays? But it is definitely a big blow to their organization indeed.
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