Shaughnessy vs Ortiz

Agreed. It's a question that needed to be asked instead of being the elephant in
the room as it was during the steroid era.

 

I'd have been more shocked if Dan had written that Ortiz was clean as a whistle.

 

Yes, he was on the 2003 list. But he gives a much stronger "denial" in the original column.

 

This is the same Shaughnessy who referred to Ortiz as a "giant sack of you-know-what" when the Sox signed him as a free agent heading into 2004. It was meant as a slam on Theo Epstein's GM capabilities. An astute baseball mind, that Dan Shaughnessy.

 

"This is my fucking needle."

 

Also important here is the context of the original question. The impetus for that question was the chant of Jays fans: "PED! PED!" So Shaughnessy didn't simply come up to Ortiz and ask, "Are you juicing?" He asked him, as I understand it, to comment on the fans' chants.