Red Sox fans should be sick to their stomach -- sickened by Thursday's New York Times report that David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were among more than 100 major leaguers who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003; sickened by the fact that the faces of your franchise's epic turnaround cheated; sickened that the Red Sox World Series titles are tainted.
Papi and Manny are no different than Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. During the Red Sox World Series runs, the two were larger than life, home run hitting, gregarious, cartoon-like characters who helped build this following we now know as Red Sox Nation.
Like McGwire and Sosa, though, who staged that incredible home run showdown in 1998, we have come to find out that so much of what we enjoyed may have been a result of performance enhancing drugs.
Manny being linked to the New York Times report comes as no surprise. He just served a 50-game suspension with the Dodgers for testing positive under baseball's new banned substance policy. But Big Papi's another story.
I wanted to believe the numbers he suddenly started posting in Boston were real. In 2002 Papi's number with the Twins were mediocre: 20 homers, 75 RBI's, .272 avg.
One year later in Boston in 2003, Papi's stats read like this: 31 homers, 101 rbi's, .288 avg. and they only improved from there.
I wanted to believe that Papi's power surge was a function of hard work, the Green Monster and Manny hitting behind him. Instead, we find out today, if these allegations are true, that Papi's no different than the rest of the Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens steroid era. He's a cheater who tried to take advantage of the blind eye baseball took to a game that became a juice factory.
I've already heard Red Sox fans defend Papi and Manny with this: "Everyone was doing it, so how can the titles be tainted?"
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That is ridiculous. To me that's like saying that all of the SS was involved in the Holocaust so why should we hold them accountable?
The final analysis is very simple. The Red Sox wouldn't have won two World titles without Manny and Big Papi and that means the titles are tainted.
