Not that the Red Sox didn’t already have a very prominent juicer among their recent franchise heroes, but with today’s outing of David Ortiz they no longer have their idiotic Papi-love to cling to, and despite the ever-decreasing amounts of faith we can put in explanations like “finally finding their niche” and “Big Fat Guy Power,” we can at least say the 2004 Boston Red Sox are in no way, shape or form some kind of magical champion. And that’s a good thing, because Red Sox fans are, generally speaking, a bunch of jerks, especially now that they will inevitably rally around the guy who ruined Big Fat Guy Power forever.<\/p>\n
But it raises an important question: when was<\/em> the last time a team won without the juice?<\/p>\n Obviously there are things we don’t know, and of course there is almost too much room in our drunken day-to-day sports banter to make reckless speculation, but there are some things we know to be true. Reports. Affidavits. Leaks. Et cetera. That said, idiotic guesses and semi-informed probables are not in anyone’s best interests; to put it another way, certain players may have highly suspicious career arcs, but that’s not automatic grounds for accusation.<\/p>\n We’ll also use the commonly accepted, post-strike timeframe as the known “Steroid Era.” Obviously, some players were dabbling with various PEDs well before then, but until the players and the league decide to act like adults, we’ll have to stick to the idea that sometime around 1994 was when steroids and other assorted goodies became accepted, if not encouraged, in the halls of Major League ballparks.<\/p>\n Likewise, we don’t always know the extent, duration or frequency of most of the accused players’ usage. David Ortiz, for example: did he start consuming the “protein shakes” in 2003, or was that simply when he first learned how to use them in conjunction with a workout and training program? All we’re left with is a combination of an at-least-slightly-tarnished career and, by association, slightly tarnished teams. Player X may have only had five at-bats in for a team in a given season, but those are still five at-bats we are allowed to look at in a different light. Perhaps someday we will be able to discuss this all more sensibly. Until then, all we can do is gather what we know.<\/p>\n So without further ado, a look back through the juice era’s championship pieces:<\/p>\n 2008<\/strong> 2007<\/strong> 2006<\/strong> 2005<\/strong> 2004<\/strong> 2003<\/strong> 2002<\/strong> 2001<\/strong> 2000<\/strong> 1999<\/strong> 1998<\/strong> 1997<\/strong> 1996<\/strong> 1995<\/strong> For those keeping score, that’s every team. Every single World Series-winning team since 1995 has, in some fashion or another, started taking their own medical advice And while we won’t pass judgment on the right or wrong of it, we will say it’s hard to get mad at anyone anymore – until now. You can take our memories, you can take our ignorant joy, you can take our passive engagement and the tangential lameness built in to something as frivolous as sports but please, please, please don’t take our big fat guy power away.<\/p>\n But that, it seems, has died a little as well. A nation weeps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" David Ortiz’ failed steroid test ought to bring the Red Sox’ World Series titles down a peg, except they’d already been cheapened long ago. Then again, so had everyone else’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[494,49,35,495,489,71,319,153],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1112"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1117,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1112\/revisions\/1117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sox35th.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTeam:<\/strong> Philadelphia Phillies
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> J.C. Romero<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> Boston Red Sox
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Brendan Donnelly<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> St. Louis Cardinals
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> Gary Bennett, Larry Bigbie<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> Chicago White Sox
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> Pablo Ozuna<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> Boston Red Sox
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> Florida Marlins
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> Chad Allen, Ivan Rodriguez<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> Los Angeles Angels
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> Brendan Donnelly, Troy Glaus, Scott Schoeneweis<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> Arizona Diamondbacks
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> Jack Cust, Matt Williams<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> New York Yankees
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, Jason Grimsley, Glenallen Hill, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch, Denny Neagle, Andy Pettitte, Mike Stanton<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> New York Yankees
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> Roger Clemens, Jason Grimsley, Chuck Knoblauch, Dan Naulty, Andy Pettitte, Mike Stanton<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> New York Yankees
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong>Darren Holmes, Chuck Knoblauch, Andy Pettitte, Mike Stanton<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> Florida Marlins
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> Kevin Brown, Gary Sheffield, Gregg Zaun<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> New York Yankees
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> Ricky Bones, Andy Pettitte<\/p>\n
\nTeam:<\/strong> Atlanta Braves
\nOuted Juicers:<\/strong> Kent Mercker, Mike Stanton<\/p>\n, save for the reigning Phillies team who history suggests will find themselves diminished in due time<\/del>. [ed. note: Thanks to reader Matt for pointing out Romero.]<\/em><\/p>\n