Saturday’s dog-and-pony show at the new Yankee Stadium can be boiled down to the first lines of David Ortiz’s opening statement and then the first question from the press.

Sitting alongside Major League Baseball Players Association general counsel Michael Weiner, Ortiz said he never took steroids, and that his name being on a list of players who tested positive in 2003 was the result of carelessness with over-the-counter supplements and vitamins.

Yes, Big Papi used the well-worn “I didn’t know what I was taking” excuse. You can debate the plausibility of that, but at least it’s consistent with his unwillingness to discuss the New York Times’ report for 10 days. It also confirms the suspicion some of us have had that Ortiz wasn’t so much concerned with what he tested positive for as which he tested positive for in 2003.

Which leads us to the first inquiry from my fellow ink-stained wretches. Sean McAdam of the Boston Herald asked the most relevant question of the day, which was, (paraphrasing) “If you knew you didn’t take steroids, why didn’t you just say that 10 days ago and nip all of the distractions in the bud?”

Ortiz explained that he wanted more information which, for legal reasons, never came. Weiner, having borrowed Donald Fehr’s Captain America shield, deflected the question by saying it was the union that advised him to wait. 

Unfortunately for Oritz, the media, which is increasingly more concerned with being indignant than fair,wants the answer now, now, now, now. Never mind that it would be stupid, let alone self-incriminating, for Ortiz to give specific answers to allegations that aren’t the least bit specific. It is essential for Ortiz to come clean now because, well, because we said so.

So, given the opportunity to prod Ortiz into clearing the air, the media spent the rest of the press conference enabling Ortiz and Weiner to make it murkier. What followed was an exercise in posturing by Ortiz (15 tests in the last six years and I’m clean), obfuscation by Weiner (there aren’t 104 players on the list but 96. Or is it 83?) and borderline incompetence by the media, at least the ones I could understand (so nobody thought to ask how Ortiz can be 100 percent certain the supplements he didn’t know he was taking didn’t contain steroids). 

So many questions remain unanswered after Saturday, and we all know they won’t be answered by Ortiz or Weiner any time soon. The only question that will move things forward is where do we go from here?

In terms of Major League Baseball, little has changed. We can attach another big name from an era defined by performance enhancing drugs. To some, it is another mark against the game. To others, it’s just another reason to hold everyone in suspicion. Personally, I’m wondering what I’ve always wondered — whether we’re going do so much hand-wringing in 10 or 20 years when it’s revealed that MLB is rife with HGH and other drugs that it either can’t test for or detect with any test.

As for David Ortiz, he did what he did and, barring any further information being leaked, it is up to our own interpretation what it was and how much of a stain it leaves on him, if any.

It is hard for me to believe that, once all the shrill demands of the media die down, his standing among Red Sox fans will change much. A little over a year ago, thousands of people crammed into Hadlock Field to give Ortiz a standing ovation every time he scratched himself. A couple of months ago, he got a curtain call for his first home run of the season.  

Perhaps if he keeps hitting like Craig Grebeck and the Sox’ slide continues, he’ll start hearing boos. Ultimately, Red Sox fans are like all other baseball fans — they care about the results on the field. The results from the lab are becoming less and less important.