Manny Being Manny or Manny Being Bonds?
And so another one bites the dust.
In case you have been living under a rock for the last 24 hours and/or haven’t had any human contact, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez has tested positive for human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG, a female fertility drug and banned substance of Major League Baseball.
Ramirez has been suspended for 50 games and will lose more than $7 million dollars in salary after deciding to drop his appeal of the ruling.
Sadly, for those who root for the Dodgers, the savior of their team has joined the likes of other home run hitting heroes who have fallen under the dark cloud of the steroids era. While Ramirez hasn’t tested positive for steroids — he said he has passed about 15 drug tests over the last five seasons — the tarnish to his image may be too much for even him to overcome.
hCG is, after all, a drug commonly used by steroid users to get their bodies to naturally reproduce testosterone after a steroids cycle. At best he is guilty of gross negligence when it comes to monitoring drugs he puts into his body. At worst he is a cheater a la Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, etc., etc.
We aren’t supposed to be surprised any more when a new name pops up on the list of substance (ab)users, but regardless of whether or not you are a fan of Ramirez it is likely you were at least a bit shocked when you heard the news. Manny is a lot of things, but until yesterday a cheater wasn’t thought to be one of them. Ugly exit from Boston aside, Ramirez has been the goofy, eccentric, fan-friendly player that Bonds never was. For all his shortcomings, Ramirez was the carefree-to-a-fault, clean power hitter baseball desperately needed.
Or so we all thought.
Manny being Manny used to be a nice way of saying Ramirez is a bit of knucklehead. Now it just feels like the butt of a bad late night joke, the easy way of saying Ramirez’s deception can only be described as Ramirez-like.
McGwire taught us all that chicks dig the long ball, but nobody told him and the players that followed that drug induced potency didn’t count. Now Ramirez has taught us all a lesson we hopefully won’t soon forget.
Looks can be deceiving. Just because a player doesn’t show the typical signs of steroid use (Bond’s enormous head) doesn’t mean he is above suspicion. Just because a player is engaging and charismatic doesn’t mean he is beyond doubt. Just because a man can lift a city doesn’t mean he can evade punishment.
And, apparently, just because you aren’t supposed to be surprised any more doesn’t mean you can’t be.
Image Source: Wbz.com
Detroit Tigers outfielder Magglio Ordonez for cash to avoid being mentioned in his book.
