The Unbearable Lightness of Manny being Manny, being Manny, being...

HIGH AND TIGHT

Today is a momentous occasion, the retirement of Manny Ramirez, now of the Tampa Bay Rays. As you know, Manny signed with the Rays at a bargain rate, a testament to their unassailable baseball wisdom and pursuit of all things pure and good.


However...

Sometimes things are a bargain, other times, they're just cheap. Manny had previously served a long suspension for having failed a drug test for female hormones (Manny, next time try cranberry juice), a clear sign of trying to mask PEDs. Now I'm sure the Rays are having major buyer's remorse, as Mr. Ramirez has driven their already difficult transitional season into a ditch by retiring instead of facing the music.

But this all brings me back to that literary classic, The Mitchell Report.  You remember the "darkest day in Yankee history", don't you? Here a former US Senator, George Mitchell, a minority owner of the Boston Red Sox, headed a committee investigating PED's in Baseball. The focus of the investigation was Kirk Radomski, New York Mets clubhouse attendant.

Following months of investigation and millions of dollars spent, the only key names in the report were, New York Yankees Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte! Amazing! I recall the media leading with a taint of the Yankees 4 Championships in 5 seasons. I'm not saying they didn't do it, but color me skeptical in the reporting.

Shortly thereafter, Selena Roberts of Sport Illusrated leaked one name, Alex Rodriguez, as being on the list of 104 in the later random test report. As he, and the other 103 who failed were promised anonymity, his rights were violated. Before you take a hard line, be prepared to talk openly to the police without an attorney if you're ever arrested. That's what I thought.

BTW, where was the stand-up guy who failed the test, then came forward to say "A-Rod shouldn't take the heat alone, I failed too"? I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Now mind you, I don't care for their ridiculous stories. A-Rod blamed his cousin "Yuri", and Pettitte threw his Dad under the bus, indicating that he took HGH from his medicine cabinet the way a teenager would steal a condom from his father's dresser. And what he copped to was using it once, to heal an injury. But don't laugh too hard, Hank Aaron made a similar admission regarding "greenies" in his book They Call Me Hammer.

No, I'm not here to bury Caesar, but to wonder if any of the stories on the Red Sox breaking their 86 year "curse" i.e. bad management, in 2004, will ever be atrributed the fact that the new "Ruth and Gehrig" of our generation, Manny Ramirez and David "I don't know how I failed" Ortiz were also caught juicing.

I'll grow old waiting.