As they should have done, for a home run that puts their team ahead.

THEY SHOULD BAN HIM FROM BOSTON!  HE’S CORRUPTING THE CHILDREN!

Dealing with the instant conflict of a very recently-fallen hero (how many in attendance knew about the Times story?)hitting a game-winning home-run for their team, fans couldn’t possibly be expected to do anything else. But if you really think Boston fans will respond to this LA-style, you are wrong, wrong, wrong. I think, for once, the unaminous Boston sports media reaction (“Big Papi is a lying fraud”)is much closer to the vox populi.

I’m a long-time Ortiz admirer, but I would be impressed and glad if the Sox just released Ortiz for misleading the team, the city and the fans. (Do I think they will? Of course not.)In most professions, this is what would happen, and none of this “one mistake” and “we’re all human” blather. The Police Chief in Alexandria VA was arrested for DUI, and was sacked the next day. Exactly.

Yes, P, and sarcasm is a great substitute for argument.
Because both are violations of the core duties and character requirements of the job, involve illegal activity, and make the employee a liability to the organization. As with Ortiz, the Chief was otherwise regarded as doing an excellent job—-in fact, unlike Ortiz, he’s in his prime. Got it now? Using analogies as short-hand doesn’t work for the literal-minded, I know…sorry to bewilder you.

“How does that make him a liability now?” Are you kidding? His statements over the winter were in the same category as Raffy’s finger-wagging. He is the face of the franchise, and is now exposed as a liar and a cheat.His presence on the roster at a high salary makes it difficult for the team to say that it doesn’t condone PED use.

The Chief was fired, not because he was drunk and not because he endangered people, but because he is the leader of the city’s law enforcement and can’t lead if his own conduct violates the laws he is sworn to uphold. Ortiz is a leader of a baseball team that is bound to obey rules and laws and principles of sportsmanship, and that cannot have its leaders, who represent the team and the community, break those rules and laws.

The stands at Fenway were strangely devoid of foam syringes…odd.  Just wait until next Thursday in the Bronx, though…

Jack-

I can’t help but wonder if there is a critical difference between law-breaking by those who enforce the law, and those who are merely under its jurisdiction.

Jack-

While I can get on board with the principle of a team holding their players to a certain moral and ethical standard, making it clear that if they want to play, they will play by the rules, all the time, I cannot get on-board equating Ortiz with the Chief of police in Alexandria. 

From my view, the Chief was arrested for DUI while Chief of police.  I only know this story from these comments, so forgive me if the facts are incorrect—I am making a couple of assumptions here.  I’ll hazard he was off-duty, but nonetheless, his employer was the city and he was, at the time, still the head of the police department.  As the top enforcer of the law, violated that which he is supposed to uphold was deemed unacceptable, and he was consequently sacked.

Ortiz, at the moment, is rumored/accused/said/whatever to have tested positive for banned substances in 2003.  He signed a new contract (with the same employer) in 2007, which he is still under presently.  Your proposal is to void his current contract for an unconfirmed violation which occurred during his previous contract.  Ortiz was hired by the Red Sox (and re-hired by them) to help them win ballgames.  His moral and ethical character were considered only insofar as whether he will hurt the team by doing… whatever. 

If Ortiz fails a test in 2009, and the team cuts him, fine.  Though I am on the record in support of steroid use in sports, I’m still opposed to breaking the rules, and if the Red Sox decide that rule-breakers will not be tolerated, more power to them.  But it seems to me that punishing a player for an unconfirmed violation—under a previous contract, when the rule itself was, well, murky at best—is too much.