For Ortiz, the real test is yet to come

Wouldn’t we all.

Yet here we are, five days after it was reported that Ortiz was among the 104 players who tested positive for banned substances during baseball’s provisional survey in 2003, and we don’t know a blasted thing more. Ortiz has yet to offer his side of the story.

Prior to last night’s game, more than one Sox official indicated that Ortiz might be going through the legal process to obtain information about his own test results, something Francona alluded to in vague terms during his customary pregame briefing with reporters.

“This is not David right now [holding things up],’’ Francona said. “We’re waiting. We’re all on hold.’’

Here are the questions we all need to ask: Will anything short of a full admission from Ortiz be enough to satisfy those of us who generally are cursed with cynicism? Or is he simply doomed, regardless of what happened, because there are certain things we need to hear?

We all know the problem baseball has encountered in recent years. The game got so wildly out of control that everyone’s credibility was affected. That means everyone. Rightly or wrongly, the game’s biggest stars of the last 10-15 years will have their accomplishments called into question because MLB turned into WWE. Guilt became a presumption. That is not the fault of those of us on the outside. Players, owners, executives, and union officials did this to themselves.

Ortiz may not like that reality at the moment, particularly given his place in the game. For all of the players who have been sucked into the eye of the steroid storm, he is the first one universally liked by fans, teammates, opponents, and media. (And he still is.) That is the part of this story that makes it so difficult. Just because of his popularity, Ortiz cannot be treated any differently than Roger Clemens, who, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, has never failed a drug test.