"It's great to be young and a Yankee."

February 16, 2009...

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- David Ortiz wants players who test positive for steroids to be suspended from baseball for a year instead of the current 50-game penalty.

Taking players to court, though, for cases involving use of the substances before players were subject to penalty is not the way to clean up the game, the Boston Red Sox designated hitter said Monday.

"I would suggest everybody get tested, not random, everybody," he said. "You go team by team. You test everybody three, four times a year and that's about it."

And if a player tests positive for steroids?

"Ban 'em for the whole year," the slugger said.

The current penalties are a 50-game suspension for a player who tests positive once, 100 games for a second positive test for the same player and a lifetime ban for a third positive test, though a player can seek to return after two years.

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Pretty strong words, Davey. What's that saying? Something about what's good for the something is good for the something?

(Google tells me it's "what's good for the goose is good for the gander." I'm not sure this is what I'm going for. I liked my mistaken version better-- what's good for the broth is good for the cook.)

So, anyways, here is a perfect example of what's good for the broth is good for the cook. I remember how excited all my Sox fans (all? 2.) were about the Yanks coming to Fenway because they were all planning on bringing Tic Tacs and rattling them at ARod. This is the type of thing that probably prompted DiMaggio's assertion that every day he thanks the Good Lord for making him a Yankee.

So is Operation Tic Tac still on, boys? HOW do you spin this one? I've heard every rationale (a lot of pathetically creative ones, even) that alienate ARod from the rest of the juicers, highlighting his transgressions as categorically worse than others who have done the same. A big support point for the argument is that "ARod went out of his way, he sought out Katie Couric and outright lied."

See, I'd argue that what Ortiz did, while similar, is actually worse. Because all ARod did was try to get naysayers to back off. Contrastly, Ortiz didn't have people pointing the finger at him. He could have assaulted a middle school kickball team, or came out of the closet, or announced he hated Shawshank Redemption, and he would have gotten the same reaction the pool hall oaf got outta Cousin Vinny when he says, "Hey Yankee boy! Got your $200 here!" and Vinny just rushes by him hurriedly waving his hand in dismissal.

Because like Vinny, MLB fans had bigger fish to fry. The best player in baseball used steroids. Media hype! Woo! Media-generated logos to assign to the story every time it appears in new iterations! Excitement!

So instead of just wiping his brow, puffing out a Phew! and feeling some pangs of guilt that are ultimately eclipsed by better-him-than-me relief, Ortiz goes out of his way to meet essentially non-existent suspicious naysayers off at the head. He wasn't under the hot lamp. Maybe he would be eventually, but he wasn't then. So he basically came out and pulled the mother of all 'holier-than-thou' bullshit performances, acting like a hall monitor on steroids (pun intended.)

THROW THE BOOK AT EM! 50 DAYS? MAKE IT A SEASON!

(It should be noted, however, that Ortiz interestingly enough makes subtle allowances for using steroids in 2003...)

He drew a distinction between the use of steroids through 2003, when it was not penalized, and the period since then when testing with penalties has been in effect.

Miguel Tejada pleaded guilty last Wednesday to lying to Congress about performance-enhancing drug use in baseball. Barry Bonds pleaded not guilty earlier to charges that he lied to a grand jury in 2003 when he said he never knowingly used steroids.

"All the drama, bringing that to court and acting like those [are] serious criminals, it doesn't look good for the game," Ortiz said. "It's not like something that is happening right now. Everybody that has been taken to court, it's because they did it in the past when it wasn't banned from the game."

Sooo...what are you trying to say? Everyone who does steroids should have the consequences upped? Except for the 2003 users. Everyone else, though, should hike their cleats down the green mile.

I feel like I should be hearing all this in the teachers' lounge at a middle school. The rampant he-said-she-said flurry characterizing the whole steroid era is driving me batty. And really serves no purpose at this point beyond sometimes mild entertainment, but more often, hackneyed whining that's beginning to just serve as backdrop of white noise to baseball's contemporary landscape.

Oh, PS, to be clear: David Ortiz is reported to have been a cheater.

Big Mammi, Roid Sux, Steroid-tiz, Big PCPi...(See, Yankee fans are so much more interesting than Sox fans. Even when it comes to vicious immaturity.)