Manny Gets Busted

Manny Ramirez, one of baseball’s best right handed hitters, is going to be sitting out for the next 50 games. Major League Baseball has suspended the Dodgers slugger for violating their drug policy. The league has officially said the suspension is for Performance Enhancing Drugs, but the drug in question is actually an over-the-counter medicine prescribed by a non-MLB authorized doctor.

Manny released the following statement through the MLB Player’s Association:

“Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was okay to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I’ve taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons.

I want to apologize to Mr. McCourt, Mrs. McCourt, Mr. Torre, my teammates, the Dodger organization, and to the Dodger fans. LA is a special place to me and I know everybody is disappointed. So am I. I’m sorry about this whole situation.”

This doesn’t sound like vintage Manny to me. My guess is that he had somebody else write this for him.

Several of Manny’s friends say he has been taking the drug to increase his sex drive, while it has also been made public that the drug is actually a women’s fertility drug that has also been used to boost the natural testosterone production of a person coming off of a steroid cycle. Could this just be a coincidence? Most likely, the answer is no.

Ramirez has been one of the most controversial players during his career, but for subtle things and not for PEDs. This comes as a surprise to me, as I never figured such a carefree guy like Manny ever resorting to this. This could put a large asterisk on Manny’s incredible career in much the same ways as it has with other sluggers like Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez.

Manny had a few options for dealing with this:

1. He could have denied it like almost everyone else caught.
2. He could have challenged the suspension since he did not get caught for a PED.
3. He could have come clean and start another emotional press conference.

However, he did none of these options. He decided to accept the suspension and go quietly, almost like he wants it to go away quickly. This may be an attempt to keep anybody from going digging for anything else that could potentially damage his reputation.

Mannywood? Or Mannyroids?

Then again, we don’t know exactly what happened. He could have taken steroids for years, he could have tried it once and stopped, or he might be completely innocent and has personal reasons for taking the drug. Unless more details become available, all we can do is assume things and create our own conclusions. We may never know what really did happen, and it may be for the better. Why throw anybody under the bus when there could be others who are getting away with these things? I say all we can do is realize that this is the Steroid Era, everybody is trying to get an edge, and the overall competition is still on an even playing field.

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