Commish not ‘positive’ on Papi
What’s more meaningful: A retired uniform number, or a little more public belief in that uniform number?
As the Red Sox showered David Ortiz with love and gifts yesterday, commissioner Rob Manfred might have given him the best goodbye of all.
Visiting Fenway Park, Manfred stopped short of saying Ortiz did not use performance-enhancing drugs. But the commissioner explained at length why Ortiz’ presence on a 2003 list of those who tested positive for PEDs should be considered inconclusive; why it’s OK to doubt at least some of the league’s own findings.
“The list was supposed to be confidential,” Manfred said. “It is really unfortunate that anybody’s name was ever released publicly — point one.
“Point two: I don’t think people understand very well what that list was.”
The 2003 samples were collected to see if there were enough believed users to begin more serious testing. The threshold that triggered further testing was 5 percent, and between 5 and 7 percent came back positive.
Those figures were cited in the famed Mitchell report as “almost certainly” understating the actual level of use.
“Over a certain percentage of players . . . we would go into actual, identified, personal testing the next year,” Manfred said. “We were well over the percentage necessary to trigger real testing.
“There were double digits of names — more than 10 — on that list, where we (MLB and the Players Association) knew that there were legitimate scientific questions about whether or not those were truly positives.”
Per the Mitchell Report, 13 of the positives were disputed by the Players Association.
“If in fact there were test results like that today on a player, and we tried to discipline them, there’d be a grievance over it (filed by the union),” Manfred said. “It would be vetted, tried, resolved, OK? We didn’t do that. Those issues and ambiguities were never resolved because we knew they didn’t matter. We knew we had enough positives that everyone agreed on that we knew we were going to trigger the testing the following year.
“Even if Rob Manfred’s name was on that list, he might have been one of those 10 or 15 where there was probably, or at least possibly, a very legitimate explanation that did not involve the use of a banned substance.”
Manfred called today’s drug testing “light years” ahead of those in 2003.
“Today, they can tell you with specificity what substance was involved,” Manfred said. “Back then, it was hard to distinguish between certain substances that were legal — available over the counter, and not banned under our program — and certain banned substances. The way it was done was, we did a test at the beginning of a window and then a test at the end of the window to see if the substance was present both times.
“All of these tests I’m talking about were in the category where those two windows didn’t quite line up, and we were not certain that it was a banned substance as opposed to something that was available over the counter.”
When the list of names leaked, the commissioner’s office put out a brief release relating to Ortiz.
“I don’t think it was quite as complete an explanation as the one I just offered,” said Manfred, who worked for the league when the 2003 testing was put in place.
But why was a release put out for Ortiz and no one else?
“I can’t tell you why that (release) happened factually,” Manfred said. “I do know that he’s never been a positive at any point under our program. I think that the feeling was, at the time that name was leaked, that it was important to make people understand that, even if your name was on that list, that it was entirely possible that you were not a positive.
“We had enough real hard positives that we knew that were positives in order to trigger (more testing).”
The records related to that 2003 list are gone, Manfred reaffirmed.
“I can’t tell you today who was in what category (of positives),” Manfred said. “We were talking about test results from numbers. It didn’t say ‘Rob Manfred’ next to it. It had a number. So, I just can’t tell you who’s in what category. I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who can tell you that.”
Ortiz might be able to, but he’s long said he doesn’t know why he was on the list.
And, of course, as the Mitchell Report noted of every player, “a negative test does not necessarily mean that a player has not been using.”
“Today, to go back and try, even if you could figure it out somehow, it would be contrary to the agreement that we made with the MLBPA, and not a productive undertaking,” Manfred said.
Manfred at first said Hall of Fame speculation was up to the voters, but did wind up taking a stance: no one should be dismissed without solid evidence.
Yesterday — for the interests of the league or for honesty or maybe even for both — Manfred did all he could to suggest the evidence against Ortiz was never solid.
“What I do feel is unfair is in situations where it is leaks, rumors, innuendo — not confirmed positive test results — that that is unfair to the players,” Manfred said. “I think that would be wrong.”