Big Papi and Manny outted!!!

George Mitchell tried to hide it and the media might have helped him, but the truth has a way of slipping through even the firmest of grasps.

OF COURSE Big Papi and Manny were juicing. Ever since 2002 when John Henry bought the team and promised to "end the curse of the bambino", the entire organization has indulged in a win-at-all-costs mentality that surely gave rise to a permissive drug culture on the team. And you can bet that it still exists today. After all, can anyone really look at the monstrous physiques and bloated faces of Beckett, Lester, and several other Red Sox players today without wondering not whether they're juicing, but how often?

And you know what? None of this would matter so much if the Red Sox hadn't waged an all-out anti-drug crusade, led by George Mitchell, and a propaganda war, led by the media (cough NYTimes cough) and the new Red Sox front office, against the Yankees as part of their win-at-all-costs strategy. It was a war begun in 2002 with the "evil empire" nonsense, a war that the fans and players themselves responded to with unmitigated aggression and indignation about some perceived and wholly imagined wrong that the Yankees had done them. Spurred on by the Red Sox management's irresponsible remarks, on the field and in the stands the rivalry turned violent and culminated in the 2003 playoffs with several players and fans getting hurt, extraordinary ugliness on the field and Aaron Boone having to deliver the deciding blow, a home run that, for every Yankee fan, felt like justice done.

Today's report on the Red Sox is more of that justice. It's as though Paul O'Neil and Bernie Williams were both caught doping in 1998. Except they weren't.

Red Sox fans thought their team was so different, and yet the characteristic that defines the Red Sox is how desperately it yearns to overtake the Yankees and undermine the legacy of the Yankee glory years of a decade ago. But it's a desperation that has done nothing but turn the Sox into a collective steroid freak and a finger-wagging, hypocritical disgrace.