Boston Red Sox first ballot Hall of Famer David Ortiz was elected into the Hall of Fame last night, although saying “it hurts” that “big brother” Manny Ramirez won’t be in the Hall of Fame with him, heavily due to the fact that he took PEDs even after the MLB’s crackdown on them.
But, some have suspicion about his PED use in 2003. He allegedly tested positive in spring training of 2003 according to a 2009 New York Times article. However, the substance Ortiz tested positive for has never been made public — and he never tested positive for any banned drug.
“We had someone coming out with this one list that you don’t know what anybody tested positive for,” Ortiz said. “All of the sudden, people are pointing fingers at me but then we started being drug tested and I never failed a test. What does that tell us?”
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It was possible that Ortiz never registered a positive test because of the questionable accuracy of those tests.
“There’s one thing that I have been afraid of my whole life: chemicals,” Ortiz said in 2016. “I don’t like to put chemicals in my body. I’m a happy person. I’m a person that believes in nature. I’m a person that believes in secondary effects when you start using things that you are not supposed to. And it was something that never came to my attention. Yes, I used to go to GNC and buy supplements like everybody else. I mean, I’m an athlete. I’m a high-performing athlete. So it was legal to go to GNC. I don’t even know where GNC is (now) since they told us not to go to GNC to buy any supplement.
“Now we get [information] from our trainers so you don’t get caught in any kind of trouble. … It (used to be) pretty normal for everybody to go to GNC and buy supplements, just like any other athlete. So that’s the reason why I’m not going to sit down and have people pointing fingers at me, because I didn’t go to GNC back in those days to buy steroids. So whatever comes up, or the way these people came out saying that I tested positive for whatever–something that they don’t even know–I don’t feel guilty, because I didn’t go to no place to buy steroids from anybody, because that’s not me.”