And it's in, Ortiz has been elected to the Hall

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Tabe

Ortiz says result got leaked because he was from Boston. He has never once said the result was NOT a positive.

Manfred admits it was a positive when he says it may have been a false positive.

Are you really stupid enough to claim a false positive is a positive?
Hey, lets do an experiment! Eat a poppy seed bagel, then take an opioid test like Olympic athletes take. Let me know how that goes for you. (It WILL test positive)

A claim of a leaked faulty test result that nobody has been able to provide details on in nearly 20 years is about as weak as it gets.

MLB never released details of what they tested for, or what was found and at what levels.
Neither did the Times.
Neither did Congress.
And supposedly they all had the data on the tests.

Any reliable testing program
A) Anonymizes the samples, after the person who collected the sample, it's just a number, no names. That limits any potential for lab corruption. Did MLB do that? Nobody knows.
B) Uses an A and B sample to mostly eliminate lab error. A positive A sample is then checked using the B sample.
c) Releases the information about what was found, and sometimes at what level. MLB did NOT do this with the 2003 testing. The info wasn't even given to the players who of all people would have a right to know. They didn't even give them that info when specifically asked for it by a player.
This is important, a couple examples.

Bicyclist tests positive for Testosterone, duh, he's a guy. Bicyclist tests positive for testosterone, nearly 3x the limit? Yeah, that's a problem. (Actually the testosterone/epitestosterone ratio, 4:1 is the limit, Landis was closer to 11:1.)

Snowboarder tests positive for Marijuana, loses gold medal. Appeals, says He doesn't smoke because he competes, but friends do and he's not giving up on his friends. Appeal shows that pot is not actually on the WADA list of banned substances despite being punishable by death in some countries. The ammount he had was close enough to the limit that it was possible that just being at a heavy enough party would put him there.
Guy doesn't end up losing his medal.
https://www.thespec.com/opinion/colu...e-hair.html?rf

MLBs 2003 testing program was just barely adequate to show more than 5% so they could start a real program in 2004 without the union getting in the way. It's not impossible that the lab found what they were paid to find. It was a joke of a program.