Manny Being Manny

Manny Ramirez has been suspended 50 games for taking a banned substance by Major League Baseball. While many of you are not surprised that a major star got suspended for taking a banned substance, some of us (like me) simply do not care anymore.

It is a strange thing for me to say but...who cares? So what if A-Rod took some roids to hit more homeruns then normal? Who cares that Barry Bonds wanted the spotlight so badly that he decided to take steroids and hit 73 homeruns in one season (seriously? 73...c'mon)? In case you forgot, who were the two players that single handily saved Baseball as we know it? While Baseball was trying to recover from an ugly lockout that ended the 1994 season (and spelled doom for a franchise in Montreal), two men captivated America on their way to breaking the most romanticized record in sports, the homerun record. I remember where I was when McGwire hit number 62 (in my livingroom with my mom. Hit it off of Steve Trachsel. Something I will never forget.) and it was perfect that he hit it vs the Cubs and then got an imbrace with the man that he was battling (interesting point about Sammy Sosa...he was widely considered a steroid user even though he never failed a test and he was caught using a corked bat. What else is there? Is he going to make a comeback only to for us to know later that he was fixing games?).

I, like many others were captivated by the homerun and the obserd amout that players were hitting. Brady Anderson has a 50 homerun season while Hank Aaron never hit more then 47...doesn't add up does it? Barry Bonds hit 73 homeruns in one season. That is one every 2.2 games. If you were to take that average, Bonds would have hit a homerun in every series that he played in (that is if the MLB didn't play 2 game series like they do now...stupid). This is what Baseball had become. A jacked up league that valued a 10-7 games with 4 homeruns over a 2-1 pitching duel. And we loved it. So why should we punish our hero's for trying to live up to the expectations that we had for them?

I get that taking steroids is cheating. But what is the difference between Manny Ramirez taking a testosterone booster and Shawn Merriman taking actually steroids? Shawn Merriman finished 3rd in the defensive player of the year award that same year he was suspended for roids. Do you think Manny will finish in the top 5 of the MVP voting this year? Yeah, didn't think so.

So why is there a difference? Is it because football is a more physical sport suggesting that it is less of a penalty for taking a drug that can boost strength and physicality? Is it because (as Sam says) Baseball is Americas sport? Is it because we romanticize about the greats that played before the invention of steroids and thus creating an unrealistic picture of how our Baseball players should perform?

Whatever the reason I don't really care. Baseball is my favorite sport regardless if my favorite players are juicing or not. How can you turn on a sport just because some of the players that play are cheating? If anyone should take a look inside it should be us as fans. We are to blame for wanting 50 homerun seasons. We are to blame for wanting hitters to blast 500 foot bombs. We are the ones that turned the other cheek.

Can we blame Manny for being suspended? Yes and No. Yes because he knows the rules about what is ok and not ok to take. And no because we had expectations of him that were perhaps unrealistic. Manny being Manny. It may never have the same meaning again...