Red Sox: David Ortiz blames Yankees for leaked 2003 PED test

Is it conceivable that the Evil Empire tossed one of the stars from their arch-rival under the bus out of jealousy? We can’t put it past them given the bad blood between the franchises, although there are some holes in this theory.

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For one thing, former MLB Players Associating Chief Operating Officer Gene Orza told the New York Daily News last week that teams were never given access to the list of players who tested positive in 2003, so the Yankees therefore couldn’t have been responsible for the leak. Sure, someone could have leaked the list to the Yankees, who then passed along some names to the New York Times, although if that were the case then why were Yankees players included in the report? Maybe there were multiple leaks? It’s possible, but any involvement from the Yankees makes the conspiracy theory far more complex and therefore less plausible.

The Times report also named Manny Ramirez, who had moved on to the Los Angeles Dodgers by that point but was a member of the Red Sox in 2003. By the time the report revealed these names in 2009, Ramirez had already served the first of two PED suspensions. Perhaps we can’t be 100 percent certain that Ramirez was guilty of the initial allegations during his time in Boston, yet he has lost the benefit of the doubt after multiple positive tests.

If the intent by the Yankees was to shift the narrative away from them by allowing public perception to believe their rivals were also guilty, wouldn’t including Manny be enough?