Recent news of David “Big Papi” Ortiz and his failed drug test stings Red Sox Nation.

David Ortiz’s pride and reputation are forever changed and it’s not because he used steroids. Big Papi loses face because Baseball retroactively changed their stance on performance enhancing drugs.  The sport flung its policies one hundred eighty degrees, from encouraging and rewarding the Big Papis and Mannys (and Bronson Arroyos) in the league to now shunning and disgracing them.  From a Freakonomics standpoint, the MLB directed all incentives towards juicing.

Ortiz, a player on the brink of ending a short lived career as an athlete, joined the Red Sox after being released by the Minnesota Twins in 2002.  His livelihood, his life’s dream, and the hopes of his friends and family were about to get crushed.  Given the choice to sink or swim, David Ortiz elected to swim and in turn become the face of the Sox franchise and his home country, the Dominican Republic.

How many players experience similar conundrums?  Baseball likely weeded out those who chose the “moral high ground” and refused the lure of PEDs.  In a form of natural selection, anyone not juicing couldn’t make the cut and dropped out of baseball.  The MLB pointed all of its incentives towards using steroids and got rid of the individuals who didn’t readily accept a drug enabling culture.  Thus, the MLB forced the practice to deeply embed itself within the sport.

Each time the media leaks new names from the mysterious 2003 positive test list, speculators always wonder how this will affect the player’s Hall of Fame prospects.  But the baseball world shouldn’t pass judgement  yet.  It needs wait until the witch hunt ends and clear heads can objectively evaluate the Steroid Era heros.  And once again, this judgement process will drastically change when Jose Conseco’s newest premonition comes true.  “Major League Baseball,” he says, “is going to have a big, big problem on their hands when they find out they have a Hall of Famer who’s used.”

Critics in baseball need to defer unfair judgement and to stop vilifying their sports heros.  Because, even in light of a failed drug test, the truth is, Big Papi was the absolute most feared hitter on the planet for years.  David Ortiz’s confidence when he approached the plate resonated throughout a city in a way critics shouldn’t ignore.  This mastery and fear he incited in opposing pitchers was unprecedented.  I still have the image ingrained in my mind of the then untouchable Mariano Rivera walking to the dug out, head down, after Papi's long ball gave Mariano a blown save in the 2004 ALCS.  That was Papi -- the sports hero.

I’ve witnessed the slugger end TWO memorable games with walk off home run in extras innings.  I jumped up and down in my seats at Fenway, lost in the maze of overjoyed fans in the grandstands and bleachers. Nothing can erase that feeling.  Not even unsavory news.

Manny and Ortiz are still the most electric duo the world has seen.  Regardless of performance enhancers, they were magical to watch.  Whatever the record books show, I hope they at least capture the absolute dominance, intensity, and emotion that surrounded each plate appearance from the heart of the Sox lineup for so long.  Bud Selig can cross out numbers in a book or remove them from the Hall of Fame, but he can never take away the spirit from the minds of Boston.

David Ortiz is and was the most clutch player to ever walk onto a baseball diamond.  'Roids or no ‘roids, he's the only slugger to ever have two walk off home runs in a single post season.  He’s a five time All Star, a four time Silver Slugger Award winner, hit 30+ home runs and 100+ RBIs in five consecutive seasons, led the league in extra base hits three separate years, earned the Hank Aaron Award, finished top five in MVP voting five times, and won the Red Sox two World Series.  He is Big Papi.  And he’s the most dominating player I proudly watched play the game of baseball.

(8/11/2009 Bill Simmons wrote a piece on Papi and steroid using heros.  Two weeks after my original post, his story needed to be attached.)

Recent news of David “Big Papi” Ortiz and his failed drug test stings Red Sox Nation.