Yankees take no pleasure in Ortiz-Manny news
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CHICAGO - No sense of joy, no gloating could be detected from the Yankees' clubhouse regarding yesterday's news that Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were among the 104 players who tested positive in 2003 for using performance-enhancing drugs.
Just a mixture of anger and disappointment for what players and Joe Girardi called another "bad day" for baseball.
"It's too bad for everyone," Derek Jeter said. "Once again we're sitting here talking about it [PEDs].''
It certainly was a bad day for the Red Sox, whose fans, upon the release of the Mitchell Report, took some satisfaction from the number of Yankees attached to it. Asked if yesterday's news taints the accomplishments of the 2004 Red Sox, Johnny Damon, teammate of Ramirez and Ortiz on that championship team, hesitated. "I think if there's a lot more guys . . . " he said, not finishing the thought.
Girardi, Damon, Jeter and Mark Teixeira indicated they would like to see the entire list of names released. "It's like ripping a Band-Aid off slowly," Girardi said of names trickling out. "It's unfortunate because we're trying to get this era behind us."
Teixeira questioned "how something that was supposed to be anonymous can get out in the first place," but he said that with that horse out of the barn, let them all out. "It's ridiculous," he said. "Let all the names come out. Let everyone deal with it at the same time because every two months or whatever, [names] coming out, it's not good for the game."
Alex Rodriguez, whose name came out in February, said of Ortiz, "he's my friend," but repeated the answer "I have nothing else to say about that" in response to every other question.
