Former Red Sox ace says teammate put Viagra in 2004 pregame drinks — VIDEO
It turns out that the tiny shots of Jack Daniels the Boston Red Sox took to help fuel their historic comeback from a 3-0 deficit to the New York Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series were spiked with performance-enhancing drugs.
The kind that come in a little blue pill.
While promoting his autobiography, “Pedro,” former Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez told late-night host Seth Meyers that Manny Ramirez put Viagra into the team’s communal cocktail to help Boston get up for Game 4 and launch its monumental comeback.
The alcohol consumed by the Red Sox during their run to the World Series title wasn’t Jack Daniels, either. According to Martinez, it was actually Mama Juana — a Dominican Republic concoction of twigs, bark and herbs with rum, red wine and honey. Ramirez had a bottle of Mama Juana in his locker and Martinez said he took it and mixed in some more booze and honey to make it taste just right.
“It tasted pretty good, but then Manny went and doctored it,” Martinez said, laughing. “Manny went and did his own mixing. He put three 100-milligram Viagras in it. So here we go, someone needs to taste this to see if it works. Ellis Burks passes by and he’s an old goat. He’s not on the roster, so we decided to let Ellis Burks try to taste it and I say, ‘You know, this is Mama Juana, if you drink it, you might get turned on.’
“He said, ‘Oh, I’ll try it. I’m not playing anyway.’ So he tried it. It seemed like it worked. So everybody was coming up to him for a little shot.”
We don’t want to know how they knew it worked, but Boston definitely rose to the occasion after that.
For the record, Viagra wasn’t on baseball’s list of banned substances then or now.
