This David Ortiz piece at The Players’ Tribune is ‘roid rage on a couple of levels:

About 30 minutes later, I’m getting dressed when I see my face pop up on the TV. I see “Failed Test. 2003.” No one had ever told me I’d failed any test. Now six years later some documents get leaked and they’re saying I’m dirty. I called my agent and asked what was going on. He didn’t have any answers for me. I called the MLB Players’ Association and they didn’t have any answers for me. To this day, nobody has any answers for me. Nobody can tell me what I supposedly tested positive for. They say they legally can’t, because the tests were never supposed to be public.

Let me tell you something. Say whatever you want about me — love me, hate me. But I’m no bullshitter. I never knowingly took any steroids. If I tested positive for anything, it was for something in pills I bought at the damn mall. If you think that ruins everything I have done in this game, there is nothing I can say to convince you different.

Unfortunately, plenty of people vigorously denied their use only to be later exposed. Craig Calcaterra takes this view:

So let’s go back to David Ortiz. He claims he’s been tested 80 times in the decade or so there has been drug testing. That’s an awful lot of testing, especially when you consider that the blood testing just started last year. And that, until last year, the number of in-season random tests was less than half of what it is now. Given that a player not “in the program” gets, at most, four tests a year and more likely 2-3 (less before last year), what possible basis could there be for Ortiz to be tested as often as he claims he has been other than a previous positive test?

“But wait!” I hear you claiming, “He’s all but admitted that he is on the list of players who tested positive in the 2003 survey testing, so this isn’t news.” True, but no players were put in “the program” as a result of the 2003 survey tests. Indeed, the very existence of the 2003 survey testing was premised on their being no discipline for anyone at all. That’s why it was called survey testing. And, at any rate, the rules for stepped-up testing weren’t even written yet by then. No, to be “in the program,” Ortiz would have had to have another positive drug test, after the survey testing began.

“But wait!” I hear you saying, “Ortiz has never been suspended!” Also true. He has not been. But, until very recently, players were not suspended for first offenses for amphetamines. They were put into mandatory drug counseling, not suspended. And their names were not released to the public. They were, however, subjected to “the program” and its stepped-up testing. It says so right there in Section 3(D).

I would hope they did so many test because steroids keep you young, and Ortiz has remained a young hitter. It’s a sign MLB should take seriously.