A-Rod’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, went on ESPN radio yesterday and reminded people that his client is not the first one to be linked to PEDs:

Joe Tacopina told @ESPN_Colin he did not want to name other players accused of PED use, “but some of them are God-like in Boston right now.” — Neil Best (@sportswatch) January 14, 2014

Of course this is a reference to David Ortiz.

A lot of people are trying to make this comment out as uber-controversial or a “shots fired” moment or something, but that seems silly to me. It’s been nearly five years since Ortiz was reported by the New York Times to have tested positive for PEDs during the 2003 survey testing. He claimed surprise and innocence at the time and made noises about wanting to get down to the bottom of it all, but we never really did get down to the bottom of it.

I have no idea what caused David Ortiz to test positive in 2003, but (a) the union has a list of all of the people who tested positive on that survey testing and if he were wrongfully reported to be on it, they would have corrected it years ago; and (b) regardless, no excuses or explanations like the one Ortiz gave has ever been accepted at face value by the sporting press or most fans. So for anyone to claim now that accusing Ortiz of PED use is somehow controversial or out of bounds is ridiculous. It’s about wanting to slam A-Rod and Tacopina, not about actually being offended at such an allegedly provocative comment.

And, of course, there is a lot of truth to what Tacopina was getting at. While his client is and perhaps always will be a pariah, a lot of guys with PED use in their past are not, and it’s rarely if ever about drugs they took as opposed to whether they were well-liked before or whether they had the nerve to try to defend themselves in a strenuous way.

People like David Ortiz and Andy Pettitte. People hate A-Rod and Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. I totally understand why and don’t begrudge those differences of opinion at all. But let’s not pretend that Tacopina said something shocking yesterday.