David Ortiz was not happy that his name came up in connection with the John Lackey-Nelson Cruz PED comments, and he let the media know about it.
Lackey was roped by Nelson Cruz and the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday and voice his displeasure over being hit hard by a guy who was suspended last year for PED-ties. In response, many people have pointed out that Lackey has little room to talk considering one of Boston’s top sluggers — Ortiz — has PED ties as well.
Many forget about it, but Ortiz came up on a list of players who allegedly tested positive for PEDs during anonymous testing in 2003. Ortiz said that the positive test came up as a result of tainted supplements.
With that in mind, a host on MLB Network decided to throw in Ortiz’s name when discussing the Lackey-Cruz beef on Monday. Ortiz happened to see that and vented to WEEI on Monday.
“What pisses me off is the whole thing about, why does my name got to be mentioned in that? What did I have to do with that? I saw on MLB the guys talking about it, and then they brought my name up, and one of the guys said that I got a free pass on that,” Ortiz said according to WEEI.com.
“(The MLB Network host) wants to make it sound like I got a free pass because nobody can point fingers at me directly. But the reason why I got that fake (expletive) free pass that he’s saying is because they pointed fingers at me with no proof. It’s easier to do it that way than having something that they can say, ‘Yes, you did this, you did that.’ My (expletive), I call straight up bull. Let me tell you. You don’t get no free pass here, especially a guy like me. I don’t get no free pass. That free pass B.S. that they want to talk about over there, they can shove it up their (expletive).”
Those were some of the comments from Ortiz — you can read the rest of the rant at WEEI — but you get the point.
Ortiz has never gotten a free pass from me. I was very critical of him when the report of his positive test first came up, and I have remained somewhat suspicious since. He says he has passed multiple drug tests since then, including several already this season. And he certainly didn’t get a free pass from Colin Cowherd last year.
The reason it seems like Ortiz has gotten a free pass is because he wasn’t suspended like Cruz. But there are still plenty of people who have suspicion about him, so I would definitely disagree with MLB Network on that.
