Big Papi trained with one of the people that supplied A-Rod* with PED’s. Does that make him a user? Absolutely not but it does bring up some red flags. According to Big Papi, he only trained with this guy in the Domincian Republic in group workouts to get ready for the season and he did not have a one on one relationship like A-Rod* did.
Ortiz is in a tough situation here. Fans want to and should believe that he is clean but they have been burned too many times before. When Mark McGuire was going after Aaron’s record, some friends and I picked a game on the calander where it looked like he could hit the magical home run. We picked Milwaukee and planned a weekend trip around the games. Big Mac had already broken the record by the time our trip came around but we did get to see him hit 3 homers over the weekend, each one a new record. We even drove down to Chicago that weekend to see Sammy Sosa play as he was having an amazing season of his own. I had such great memories of that weekend and I even took a great picture of the moment McGuire was connecting with a record breaking homer. Now those memories are tarnished by steriods.
I moved to the Bay Area in 2000 just in time to see Barry Bonds start to hit crazy amounts of home runs. I was in the bleachers when he hit his 600th career home run and I was at 10 games of his record breaking season. Now those memories are tarnished by steroids.
In 2006 I was at Fenway to see Big Papi hit home runs #51 and #52 to pass Jimmie Foxx for the most homers in a season by a member of the Red Sox. Is that memory going to be tarnished? Ortiz is the face of the Red Sox and I don’t know what I would do if I found out he was among the cheaters in baseball. I believe that he is clean and I hope I don’t get burned again but I have been burned enough in the past to place too much trust in baseball players.
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