The recent news of Manny Ramirez testing positive for steroids has put a sour face on the game of Major League baseball and now we have the news that his teammate David Ortiz tested positive back in 2003 along with him.
Big Papi back in an older television interview stated that any steroid users should be "banned for one year." Well, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black. However, I'm going to turn a blind eye since many players were juicing in 2003 but the real question that it does bring up is the 2004 World Series Title tainted due to this new knowledge?
It is really tough to not have an opinion at this point and it feels that the 2004 title has a cloud over it now much similar to the cloud Barry Bonds had when he broke Aaron's record.
Did either of them juice in 2004 though? Well, that is something I guess we will never know since we cannot assume that either decided to stop using performance-enhancing substances during the 2004 season. We could assume the best-case scenario that they did but it is tough to trust any Major League Baseball player from that era now.
Major League Baseball from 1998-2007 has become a black eye in the game of baseball and really should be noted as "the steroid era" for the historical records. It will be interesting to see how Boston reacts to one of their favored sons tested positive. He was the guy who helped beat the hated Yankees in the ALCS for Christ sake.
Does the World Series in 2004 become tainted though? I guess on some level it does, sure there were many athletes on that team that were clean but when you have two bad apples, it spoils the rest of them.
The sad part is that the 2004 Red Sox win in the World Series changed the lives of the people in Boston who never saw a World Series title and now the cloud of the "steroid era" is now permanently affixed to "reversing the curse."
Is the Red Sox World Series title in 2004 tainted?
