David Ortiz apologized for being a distraction. Twenty minutes earlier, the player’s organization mea culpa’d: some of the players on the 2003 list didn’t actually test positive, saying that of the 104 names on the list, both the player’s association and MLB agree that only 96 of them actually tested positive.  But Fox baseball says even fewer.  And the definitions of a “positive test” may vary too.

The player’s association went on to say that there were legally available supplements that could have looked like steroids in the tests.  That’s what Ortiz is strongly implying he was doing.  The fact that the player’s association is going ahead and admitting their screw up now, as opposed to when other names leaked, points to that as well.

Of course, Ortiz knew he was on the list–everyone on the list knows they were on the list.  But there are nine guys out there who couldn’t ever figure out what to do about it, given that they didn’t take steroids per se.

So now, for crap’s sake, release the list.  Then, release all the other information you have about which people tested positive, which are the false positives on the list, and how they know.  That’s the only way to get past this.  And we need to get past this.

Now.