New York Times: Manny and Ortiz Were on 2003 Doping List

Wow.

That is the first thing that came to mind when reading that the New York Times is reporting that Red Sox sluggers David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were part of the 100+ players that tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003—the same group whose names were supposed to remain anonymous.

The sources?

"The information about Ramirez and Ortiz emerged through interviews with multiple lawyers and others connected to the pending litigation. The lawyers spoke anonymously because the testing information is under seal by a court order. The lawyers did not identify which drugs were detected."

This would be the fifth player from that year implicated with performance-enhancing drugs: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Jason Grimsley, and David Segui. Seemingly every month, a new player has been highlighted from that list with A-Rod as arguably the biggest name thus far—no pun intended.

The tests—conducted by MLB in 2003—were supposed to be anonymous, but the results were never destroyed and federal agents took control of the information—which is now held up in court as the players union and the Feds argue over the legal possession of it.

In the meantime, these reports will continue to leak out at bizarre times and cause the focus of baseball fans to shifted away from the games on the current day to more than five years ago. If this report is true, I won't be surprised but still disappointed.

Red Sox haters, laugh all you want. There are 96 players left to go. Your favorite could be—and likely will be—next.

Josh Nason is the publisher and main writer for New England sports and media blog Small White Ball. He can reached at josh [at] smallwhiteball [dot-com] or at his Twitter feed.