Manny Ramirez just retired, after violating the league's substance abuse policy for the second time. This has happened suprisingly quietly. He was caught using performance enhancing drugs (AGAIN), he earned a 100 game suspension, and then essentially told the league, "You can't punish me, I quit!" Where is the rage from the fans? Meanwhile, the world is trying its hardest to put Barry Bonds behind bars. Baseball still has a flaming hatred for barry, who hasn't played since 2007, and yet they're going to let manny quietly dodge his punishment for something he did last week!
The game is different now. In the 90's and early 2000's the league turned a blind eye to steroid usage. Almost every player was on steroids, including the pitchers the sluggers were hitting homeruns off of. I don't care if bonds was on steroids in 2001, nor do i care if manny was. Let's face it, they both were. The league created this environment. Did mark mcgwire, sammy sosa, rafael palmeiro, or jose canseco hit 755 home runs? No. So don't tell barry his achievements don't mean anything. In fact he hit Number 755 off a pitcher who was suspended for using steroids. Basically, what happened happended. Forgive, and move on. But should we forgive a guy who actually got caught twice, not just someone who is the victim of speculation, in a league trying to get clean?
Manny running from this suspension is an obvious disgrace to the game. Some think bonds breaking the all time homerun record is a disgrace, but i take the opposite view. Barry was destined to break that record, took a lot of abuse while doing it, but didn't run from the heat. In a twisted sort of way, bonds' march to 755 was courageous and heroic. Needles were being thrown from the outfield. I remember a game in houston where a pitcher was allowed to throw behind him three times in one at bat. The crowd cheered. He became possibly the most hated player in sports history. But did he retire to avoid all that? No, he dealt with all the undeserved hatred. Ramirez quit to avoid a suspension he obviously deserves. Lanky Bonds hit as many as 49 homeruns in a season before he bulked up and hit 73. He never hit more than 46 after that. Maybe he could have played longer if his knees didn't give out under the weight of his synthetic biceps. He reached 400 at bats only once after his 73 season. If it weren't for this legendary year earning him an intentional walk evertime he stepped up, he almost certainly would have hit more homeruns. So barry was destined to break this record, and running from that would have been an insult to the game.
Manny ramirez is easily a hall of fame caliber player. He has a ridiculous .411 career on base percentage and 555 career homeruns. For the majority of his career he flirted with a .600 career slugging percentage, which would make him just about the best right handed hitter ever. A point of debate is whether or not hall caliber players that are associated with steroid usage should be put into the hall. I think for the guys that did it in the steroid era, you need to let them in. Usage was so widespread and was basically accepted by the league, so i don't know that you can really consider it cheating in the truest sense. If you hit a homerun off a juiced up roger clemens, you certainly earned that homerun. But the line has to be drawn somewhere. At a certain point the league needs to say enough is enough. What happened in the past happened, but manny is cheating in the here and now. So admit sosa, and mcgwire, and clemens, and palmeiro, and certainly leave barry bonds alone. But it just isn't ok anymore, manny. So you should be the precedent, the pete rose of steroid usage. Manny should NOT be a hall of famer if he thinks he can disgrace the game and then run away.
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