According to ESPN.com, Big Papi admits he may have been on the juice.
This story is from MAY and the worldwide leader buried (casually, and without comment) the shockingly cynical "confession" 8 paragraphs down the page, wrapped in a non-story about Curt Schilling.
ESPN's stock would precipitously drop if Papi, Manny, Jeter or A-Rod were found to have joozed, so anything even hinting of their non-immortality gets buried under the verbiage.
Money Quote from the Cookie Monster himself:
In fact, Ortiz isn't 100 percent certain he hasn't taken steroids himself. He told the Herald that when he was a young player in the Dominican Republic, he used to drink protein shakes for sale there. He explained he no longer does so because he can't be sure they don't include banned substances.
"I tell you, I don't know too much about steroids, but I started listening about steroids when they started to bring that [stuff] up, and I started realizing and getting to know a little bit about it," Ortiz told the Herald. "You've got to be careful. ... I used to buy a protein shake in my country. I don't do that any more because they don't have the approval for that here, so I know that, so I'm off of buying things at the GNC back in the Dominican. But it can happen anytime, it can happen. I don't know. I don't know if I drank something in my youth, not knowing it."
Sounds like a non-lawyerly way of preparing a no-contest defense...