Doug Gottlieb wonders whether Adrian Beltre is on steroids. He's just wondering, mind you.

Other national media figures aren't going to let the Fox Sports Radio host skate on that.

At the heart of Gottlieb's suspicion is Beltre's late-career production, which included career hit No. 3,000 on Sunday. Armed with little more than the Clay Travis-esque "I'm just asking the question," Gottlieb on Tuesday loosely tied Beltre to the dozens of failed PED tests by players from the Dominican Republic, in the majors and the minors (Beltre, 38, is the first Dominican player in baseball history to reach 3,000 hits).

MORE: Sammy Sosa on PED allegations: 'They have nothing on me'

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Gottlieb also dragged out the old argument that baseball writers didn't properly cover PED use in the game during the late 1990s/early 2000s, and he added that today's media might be turning a similar blind eye to Beltre.

From there came the clapbacks.

Yahoo Sports baseball writer Jeff Passan had a lengthy Twitter exchange with Gottlieb that escalated into a lively 15-minute spot on Gottlieb's show:

So baseball journalists 20 years ago not investigating a supremely-hard-to-pin issue to your liking gives you room to baselessly speculate? https://t.co/vxVlwCGRei — Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) August 1, 2017

New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro went straight to Gottlieb's brush with the law while a basketball player at Notre Dame:

Also, if one college basketball player steals his roommate's credit card, then all college athletes are thieves. https://t.co/7OZOQru5QS — Mike Vaccaro (@MikeVacc) August 1, 2017

That ticked off Gottlieb, who said Vaccaro had his facts wrong (go to 1:45 of this video) and later called Vaccaro a "hack."

.@GottliebShow has a message for all of you out there he wants you to hear LOUD and CLEAR. pic.twitter.com/GO29yzJIDM — FOX Sports Radio (@FoxSportsRadio) August 1, 2017

Vaccaro's response:

Not offended. Being called a hack by Doug Gottlieb is like being called a fine actor by Tom Hanks. He knows of whence he speaks. — Mike Vaccaro (@MikeVacc) August 1, 2017

ESPN's Bomani Jones chided Gottlieb for singling out Dominican players:

you can get steroids pretty easy here, too. long as beltre is tested the same as americans, your only point is xenophobia. — El Flaco (@bomani_jones) August 1, 2017

Gottlieb went back hard at Jones, saying he basically just plays the race card:

When @bomani_jones called him a xenophobe on Twitter, this is what @Gottliebshow had to say: pic.twitter.com/7q2hg1RBQI — FOX Sports Radio (@FoxSportsRadio) August 1, 2017

Sports Illustrated media columnist Richard Deitsch used the dustup to remind people Fox Sports just laid off dozens of digital editorial staff:

Days like today remind me of the Emmy Award-winning feature producers & 30+ news people Fox Sports canned in exchange for the circus. — Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) August 1, 2017

When Passan later decried the state of sports talk radio, Atlanta radio host John Kincade jumped in with a clothesline in defense of former ESPN colleague Gottlieb.

As opposed to the "garbage" we see in print on a daily basis? Drop the broad brush and step away Jeff! https://t.co/57Ufw0fj7V — John Kincade (@JohnKincade) August 1, 2017

To all this we say: Well played, Doug. You got your name in the (digital) papers.