Lobel's Question of the Week: Do You Believe Big Papi?

Every week, legendary sportscaster Bob Lobel wants to hear your opinion about a sports question he's been thinking about.

This week Bob has a simple question for you: Do you have believe David Ortiz when he says he never knowingly used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs)?

In a lengthy post on The Players' Tribune, the Red Sox slugger admitted that he did fail that drug test in 2003, but claims he didn't know about it until it became public knowledge in 2009.

Putting the Patriots' "Cheating" Into Perspective

Seriously, would this man (who doubles as the Emperor from Star Wars) do something dishonest like deflate footballs?

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

I was shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, to read last night that the NFL discovered the New England Patriots had deflated 11 of the 12 footballs used in the team's AFC Championship demolition of the Indianapolis Colts.

So far this morning, I have found people to be in three camps.

1. Of course the Pats cheated, that's what they do under Beli-cheat. HA!
2. The Pats totally didn't cheat. This is a class organization that does things the right way.
3. Who cares, they beat the Colts by 5,000 points. An extra 2 PSI in the football wouldn't change that.

The first two positions ignore the past history of the Patriots, who have obviously violated league rules before, but are far from the only team to do so. The third is a bit more defensible, but it seems to make the assertion that "if you cheat and blow out a team, we should just assume your cheating didn't affect the outcome because you won by so much."

That seems a bit intellectually dishonest though, because why then would a team cheat in the first place? Clearly they thought it would help them win.

So I think the proper response is to say that New England, given coach Bill Belichick's reputation for winning at all costs and getting creative with rule compliance, probably cheated.

Probably.

But we should also say that this was a minor offense and should be treated as such. There should be some discipline from the league, but talk of vacating New England's spot in the Super Bowl, and even the ridiculous cries for a rematch, are so far beyond a reasonable punishment for this particular crime.

A late round draft pick or two and a small fine should do the trick.

Now that we've established New England's probable "cheater, cheater pumpkin eater" status, let's tackle the conspiracy theory and chief excuse from Patriots fans: THE BALLS DEFLATED BECAUSE OF THE TEMPERATURE CHANGE FROM INSIDE TO THE COLD OUTSIDE AT GAME TIME!

Bob Lobel: Baseball Hoping David Ortiz is Clean This Time Around

By Bob Lobel  @boblobel

Editor's Note: Bob wanted it to be known that the point of his blog this week was not to assert that David Ortiz is using any type of performance enhancing drug, but rather to explain that Major League Baseball is hoping Ortiz is clean, given the backlash from the steroid era. The original blog title has been changed.

Remember when a Red Sox player interrupted manager Tito Francona’s press conference to complain about an official scorer’s ruling that took an RBI away from him, by calling a hit an error? 

It was rude, childish and selfish behavior, all done with no regard for public opinion.

David Ortiz wanted that RBI.