Manny Being Manny

When people look back on the career of Manny Ramirez, what will they remember? Is it the lifetime .312 batting average, 555 home runs and 1831 RBI? Is it the 12 All-Star selections? Is it the 21 grand slams, second only to Lou Gehrig at 23? Is it his 28 post-season HRs, the most in MLB history, and playoff heroics that lead him winning the World Series MVP in the magical 2004 Red Sox run, as well as helping another victory in 2007?

Sadly, what he'll be most remembered for is being the first player busted twice for PED violations in 2009 and again this month, the threat of an 100 game suspension inspiring his sudden retirement. (He allegedly also failed a test in 2003.) Or perhaps they'll remember his often destructive behavior. That's a shame, because at his best, whether helping Boston defeat the curse of Babe Ruth or briefly bringing Mannytown to Los Angeles, Manny was one of the most talented sports oddballs this side of Dennis Rodman...

McGwire admits steroid use

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/baseball/mlb/01/11/mcgwire.steroids/

Monday January 11, 2010
McGwire admits steroid use
Story Highlights
Mark McGwire says he took steroids during much of his 16-year career
McGwire says he took them during his 70-home run season of 1998
McGwire is entering his first season as St. Louis Cardinals hitting coach

Mark McGwire hit 583 home runs in his career, including a then-record 70 in 1998.

Mark McGwire has admitted taking steroids in 1998 when he broke Roger Maris' home run record.

"I used steroids during my playing career and I apologize," McGwire said in his statement. "I remember trying steroids very briefly in the 1989/1990 off season and then after I was injured in 1993, I used steroids again. I used them on occasion throughout the nineties, including during the 1998 season. I wish I had never touched steroids. It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.

"I'm sure people will wonder if I could have hit all those home runs had I never taken steroids. I had good years when I didn't take any and I had bad years when I didn't take any. I had good years when I took steroids and I had bad years when I took steroids. But no matter what, I shouldn't have done it and for that I'm truly sorry. Baseball is really different now -- it's been cleaned up. The Commissioner and the Players Association implemented testing and they cracked down, and I'm glad they did."

McGwire is entering his first season as the hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals, and his return to baseball prompted his admission. "It's time for me to talk about the past and to confirm what people have suspected," McGwire said. That echoes the phrase he used repeatedly during a Congressional inquiry into steroids in baseball in 2005, when he stonewalled questions about whether he had ever used steroids by saying, "I'm not here to talk about the past."

McGwire then went into seclusion for several years before being hired at the end of last season as the Cardinals' new hitting coach.

"On behalf of the entire Cardinals organization, I believe Mark McGwire today did the right thing by telling the truth and openly acknowledging his past mistakes," said Bill DeWitt, the Cardinals Chairman. "No one condones what Mark did more than 10 years ago, but we hired him as our hitting coach because we know there are many contributions that Mark can and will make to our team and to this game."

McGwire played 16 seasons in the majors with Oakland and St. Louis. He retired after the 2001 season having hit 583 home runs, which still ranks tied for eighth in major league history. His 10.61 at bats/home run is the best ever.

Tony La Russa, the Cardinals manager who hired McGwire as hitting coach and who managed McGwire with both the A's and the Cardinals, told MLB Network he did not feel duped by his former slugger, adding, "It's not excusable, it's a mistake but the perception of Mark when he played was he's a really solid individual and a great teammate and I think that will be restored."

La Russa said he first found out when McGwire spoke to him Monday morning.

Commissioner Bud Selig said he was "pleased" by McGwire's admission, adding, "This statement of contrition I believe will make Mark's re-entry into the game much smoother and easier."

Steroids have been banned in baseball since 1991, but it wasn't until 2003 that baseball began random survey testing of players that was meant to remain anonymous. Testing with punishment was not instituted until the following year. McGwire's admission is the latest in a series of drug revelations that have plagued baseball in the past 12 months, beginning with a report in Sports Illustrated last February that Alex Rodriguez had tested positive for steroids in 2003. In May, it was announced that Manny Ramirez of the Dodgers had failed a drug test and was suspended for 50 games. In June, Sammy Sosa, who had been McGwire's companion during their unforgettable chase of Maris' home run record in 1998, was revealed to have been on that 2003 list of failed tests, and in July Ramirez and Red Sox slugger David Ortiz were named from that list as well.

Beast of the Month - June 2009

Beast of the Month - June 2009
Alex Rodriguez
Steroid-Fueled Baseball Star

"I yam an anti-Christ..."
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"

"Jose Canseco Smirking Smugly At Nation"
Recent article title found at Onion.com

Is Jose Canseco ever wrong? Seriously, give this man a Pulitzer. In April, he speculated the reason Manny Ramirez (a two-time World Series champion for the Boston Red Sox and current Los Angeles Dodger superstar) didn't receive a monster contract offer during the off-season was because the owner's knew he was a steroid juicer. More than likely, Canseco guessed, Manny was on the 2003 list of players who tested positive for doping, a list of names likely already leaked to MLB owners. On this score, Canseco said he was 90 percent sure.

For his wacky conspiracy theorizing, Canseco was once again lambasted in the media, the same way he has been repeatedly treated over the last four years since his book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big, was released. Since then, not one claim by him has been proven false, and many of his claims, even those sounding most luridly outlandish at first, have been proven true. Despite his track record, one sportswriter dismissed Jose C as "ridiculous and irresponsible" for engaging in "pseudo-slanderous steroid chatter" over Ramirez.

But what do you know? Barely a month after Canseco made his reckless hunch, Manny was suspended for 50 games after testing positive for a banned substance. While he wasn't actually caught taking steroids, the drug he did test positive for, human chorionic gonadotropin, is popular among roiders for stopping the side effects of ending a cycle. (You know, little things like lower sperm count and shrunken testicles.) Maybe there's another explanation for why Ramirez was taking a female fertility drug, but that he is indeed a drug doper as Canseco had suspected seems to fit Occam's Razor the best.

Of course, the whole steroid scandal may have jumped the shark with the Ramirez revelation. At this point, is anybody shocked when a ballplayer is revealed as a drug cheater? This is, after all, the third time since 2005 The Konformist has focused Beast of the Month on the subject, which means we've covered this more in our 13-year history than we have Israel's brutal treatment of Palestinians and Lebanon. Yes, baseball is America's game (well, really it's football, and anyone who claims otherwise is kidding themselves) and yes, the steroid scandal has tarnished the game's legacy, but at this point, we've got more important things to do, like investigate Wall Street mass thievery, remind people there are still bloody pointless wars being fought in the Middle East and search YouTube for videos of Lady Gaga. So consider this BOTM a kiss-off to the whole "professional baseball players cheat" moral outrage as we get onto better things.

But before we jump off the whole steroid scandal bandwagon, The Konformist needs to get one last jab in, to a guy really deserving it. After all, part of the reason the steroid outing of the best player on baseball's second most famous franchise received such a ho-hum response is because the best player on baseball's most famous franchise (Alex Rodriguez, The Konformist Beast of the Month) had been outed as a fraud only months before.

For those who don't follow baseball, Rodriguez, better known as A-Rod, is not only the best player on the New York Yankees, he is arguably the best player in baseball, period. (Only Manny and Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals come close.) He has already won 3 MVP titles, this despite not winning in 2001 and 2002, when he hit 52 and 57 home runs. In 2006, he was the only non-pitcher still active to make Sports Illustrated's Alltime All-Star Team. (Fellow Yankees Roger Clemens and reliever Mariano Rivera also made the team.) It is suspected by many that Barry Bonds, the man formerly viewed as the best player in baseball, was snubbed from the team thanks to the evidence against him as a steroid cheat.

Indeed, the conventional wisdom until last year was that A-Rod was going to be the hero who saved the game by restoring the integrity of the numbers. He ended last season with 553 career home runs, 13th all time. He is second to only Ken Griffey Jr. among current players, and Griffey (perhaps the only modern slugger without any steroid suspicion due to his non-muscled physique) appears soon to be headed to retirement. That left A-Rod with the best chance of surpassing Bonds' career total of 762* round-trippers, something he could conceivably do in four great seasons. After that, balance would be returned to the universe, as the most sacred record in American sports would not be held by a doping phony.

Even without the recent revelations, the "A-Rod as Christ savior" storyline had its problems. For all his talent, he's never been particularly loved by the public or, perhaps more importantly, his fellow teammates. He isn't a surly SOB like Bonds, but his well-noted narcissistic self-absorption (on full display on the April 2009 cover of Details where he was seen kissing his own image in a mirror) has made him a magnet for haters. As for his contributions to teams, here are some curious facts: in 2001, after he left the Seattle Mariners for a ten-year, $252 million payout with the Texas Rangers, the Mariners won an astounding 116 games. His Rangers, meanwhile, finished in last place the three seasons he was there. Since he has moved to the Yankees in 2004, meanwhile, they have yet to even appear in a World Series despite all their well-paid talent, while their nemesis in Boston broke the Bambino curse with two titles, starting coincidentally the year he started playing in the Big Apple.

Okay, maybe the bad luck of the Rangers and Yankees isn't his entire fault. (Although his notorious showing in post-season play, which has earned him like Bonds before the insulting nickname of "Mr. April-September" from some, certainly hasn't helped.) Still, entering his sixth year in NY pinstripes, he wasn't even half as loved by fans or fellow Yankees as fellow teammate Derek Jeter. This was underscored in manager Joe Torre's recently published book The Yankee Years, where he reveals A-Rod was derisively termed as "A-Fraud" by teammates annoyed by his shallow insincerity. His 2007 demand to renegotiate his record contract to an even larger ten-year, $275 million didn't help.

Torre's tell-all bio was only the second recent book to dish dirt on A-Rod. The first came out last year, when Canseco released his sequel to Juiced, titled Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball. The big bombshell in the tome: Canseco claims in the latter half of the 1990s, A-Rod asked for help in finding a trainer that would supply steroids. He refused to name the trainer (referring to him only as "Max") and when pressed on Nightline over his refusal to provide corroborating evidence, Canseco replied: "Let's see how Alex reacts. Let's see if they call me a liar again. How's that for ya? Let's see if all of a sudden they're gonna call me a liar again."

Surprise, surprise. As he was lambasted earlier this year over his Manny hypothesis, Canseco, despite his history of truth-telling, was indeed shredded in the press as a liar again in 2008 over the claim. In this case, it didn't help Jose that he has an admitted beef with A-Rod, claiming Rodriguez had an affair with Canseco's then wife. (Apparently A-Rod's affairs don't merely include cheating with wives of teammates: late last year, his wife Cynthia filed for divorce after a rumored adulterous affair between A-Rod and Madonna became top tabloid news.) His allegations did get some backing last year when former reliever John Rocker claimed MLB commissioner Bud Selig knew he failed a drug test for steroids in 2000, and doctors for both management and the players' association advised him and three other Texas Rangers - among them Alex Rodriguez - on how to use steroids. Of course, when the one person who helps confirm your story is a notorious pariah like the racist Rocker, it tends to undercut, rather than enhance, credibility.

Despite this, it appears Canseco is once again vindicated. In February, Sports Illustrated reported that A-Rod was one of the 104 players who tested positive for steroids. As the controversy became the talk of the news cycle, A-Rod finally fessed up and admitted, yes, he was a steroid cheat. The mea culpa came with a convenient asterisk, as A-Rod insisted he only did it from 2001-3 while with the Rangers, meaning he denied any usage after steroid use had penalties attached. In any case, his apology, especially the one he sent publicly to his teammates, was widely deemed as insincere.

Even with this limited hangout by A-Rod, outrage became the order of the day. No longer was "A-Fraud" enough of a put-down of the dude by his critics: "A-Roid" or (with even greater ingenuity, courtesy of a NY Post cover) "A-Hole" became the new insults. On David Letterman, a top ten joke list featuring messages left on A-Rod's answering machine included this knee-slapper: "Could you find a steroid that keeps you from choking in the playoffs?"

The SI report become the first shot of reporter Selena Roberts' A-Rod bio, the third book to talk smack about Rodriguez. Roberts claims A-Rod started his steroid regimen in high school, and that he has continued it during the Yankee years. She also made claims of another A-Rod cheating scandal: that A-Rod would tip buddies on other teams the pitch they were facing late in blowout games. According to Roberts, the quid quo pro deal allowed players in the pitch-tipping scandal to pad their stats in at-bats for games already decided, at the expense of late-inning pitchers. While the scheme wouldn't change the winner of the game, it certainly qualifies as an attack on the integrity of the game, perhaps even more so than steroids, and a betrayal of pitching teammates almost on par with sleeping with their wives.

(Adding insult to his injured reputation, a Yahoo! Sports article from August 2008 reported the next generation of Bill James wannabees had statistically uncovered a sabermetrics to measure clutch hitting, and A-Rod, as critics had long insisted, was indeed a pressure-situation choker.)

Fortunately for A-Rod, a cyst on his hip forced him to miss the first full month of the season. (Cynics note that a common side-effect of steroid usage is cysts developing at injection point.) By the time of his May 8th return, A-Rod outrage had dipped and been superseded by the Manny dope scandal, and hitting a home run on the first pitch certainly aided him in forgiveness. Come October, maybe A-Rod can finally earn the love (and the $275 million) he has long craved from fans by finally delivering in the playoffs, and the forgiveness that comes with it. Based on his track record, however, The Konformist is betting against him once again.

In the end, A-Rod is merely just another scapegoat in sports, a face for the public to focus wrath. And that's why we expect this to be the last steroid-related athlete BOTM we do, even if another great baseball superstar is eventually shockingly uncovered as a secret doper. But that doesn't mean we'll stop covering this issue: as The Konformist and Jose Canseco long have pointed out, the owners and the league itself have long sanctioned the steroid era with their covert consent. The tale of John Rocker, that the commissioner himself knew he failed a 2000 test and that management advised him on how to properly juice, provides ample evidence of just how complicit they are. Indeed, the evidence suggests that even as Bud Selig was personally promoting the "A-Rod as baseball savior" myth, he already knew via the 2003 tests that Rodriguez was a cheater. Meanwhile, as Nation magazine writer Dave Zirin has noted, owners "have yet to have to face any kind of Congressional subcommittee, grand jury or operatic media melodrama for their role in cheapening the sport." If they ever are, no doubt The Konformist will be there ready to point fingers again where they deserve.

In any case, we salute Alex Rodriguez as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Al!!!

Sources:

Blum, Ronald. "A-Rod Says He Expects Questions on Drugs." Associated Press 20 February 2008 <http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iCj65bmE8AEQ7MvFQrBVYXwwJp9QD8UUAVI80>.

Brinson, Will. "Jose Canseco Says '90 Percent Chance' Manny Ramirez Is on 'The List'." MLB FanHouse 6 April 2009 <http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2009/04/06/jose-canseco-says-90-chance-manny-ramirez-is-on-steroids-list>.

Canseco, Jose. Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.

Canseco, Jose. Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.

"Details on A-Rod's Alleged Pitch-Tipping Scheme in Texas." Sports Illustrated 30 April 2009 <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/04/30/roberts.qa>.

Escherich, Katie. "Exclusive: Jose Canseco Says 'The Truth Hurts'." ABC News 26 March 2008 <http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=4528387>.

Harris, Beth and Blum, Rondald. "Ramirez Suspended 50 Games for Drug Violation." Yahoo! Sports 7 May 2009 <http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AozPbdpnRxDcG.ttoQ3gr6URvLYF?slug=ap-dodgers-ramirez-drugs>.

"Jose Canseco Smirking Smugly At Nation." The Onion 12 February 2009 <http://www.theonion.com/content/from_print/jose_canseco_smirking_smugly>.

Passan, Jeff. A-Rod Is a $300 Million Migraine." Yahoo! Sports 31 August 2008 <http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AqYZcgXmuHwg3tDIHBh5_VYRvLYF?slug=jp-arod083108>.

Roberts, Selena. A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2009.

Roberts, Selena and Epstein, David. "Sources Tell SI Alex Rodriguez Tested Positive for Steroids in 2003." Sports Illustrated 7 February 2009 <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/02/07/alex-rodriguez-steroids/index.html>.

Streeter, Kurt. "Manny Ramirez Blindsided Everyone but Jose Canseco." Los Angeles Times 7 May 2009 <http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-spw-streeter-manny8-2009may08,0,5943246.story>.

Torre, Joe and Verducci, Tom. The Yankee Years. New York: Doubleday, 2009.

Verducci, Tom. "Alltime All-Star Team." Sports Illustrated 3 October 2006 <http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/magazine/10/03/bb.allstar1009/index.html>.

Zirin, Dave. "A-Rod, Anabolic Agonist Sports." The Nation 9 February 2009 <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090223/zirin>.

Ortiz and Ramirez Said to Be on 2003 Doping List

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/sports/baseball/31doping.html

Ortiz and Ramirez Said to Be on 2003 Doping List
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
July 30, 2009

Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, the sluggers who propelled the Boston Red Sox to end an 86-year World Series championship drought and to capture another title three years later, were among the roughly 100 Major League Baseball players to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, according to lawyers with knowledge of the results.

Some of baseball’s most cherished storylines of the past decade have been tainted by performance-enhancing drugs, including the accomplishments of record-setting home run hitters and dominating pitchers. Now, players with Boston’s championship teams of 2004 and 2007 have also been linked to doping.

Baseball first tested for steroids in 2003, and the results from that season were supposed to remain anonymous. But for reasons that have never been made clear, the results were never destroyed and the first batch of positives has come to be known among fans and people in baseball as “the list.” The information was later seized by federal agents investigating the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes, and the test results remain the subject of litigation between the baseball players union and the government.

Five others have been tied to positive tests from that year: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Jason Grimsley and David Segui. Bonds, baseball’s career home runs leader, was not on the original list, although federal agents seized his 2003 sample and had it retested. Those results showed the presence of steroids, according to court documents.

The information about Ramirez and Ortiz emerged through interviews with multiple lawyers and others connected to the pending litigation. The lawyers spoke anonymously because the testing information is under seal by a court order. The lawyers did not identify which drugs were detected.

Unlike Ramirez, who recently served a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy, Ortiz had not previously been linked to performance-enhancing substances.

Scott Boras, the agent for Ramirez, would not comment Thursday.

Asked about the 2003 drug test on Thursday in Boston, Ortiz shrugged. “I’m not talking about that anymore,” he said. “I have no comment.”

The union has argued that the government illegally seized the 2003 test results, and judges at various levels of the federal court system have weighed whether the government can keep them. The government hopes to question every player on the list to determine where the drugs came from. An appeals court is deliberating the matter, and the losing side is likely to appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

A spokesman for the United States attorney’s office for the Northern District of California, which seized the tests, declined to comment on Thursday. Michael Weiner, the general counsel for the players union, also declined to comment.

One by one, the names of elite players tied to performance-enhancing drugs have surfaced this year. In February, it was Rodriguez and Bonds. In May, it was Ramirez — for the first time. In June, it was Sosa.

Rodriguez had been viewed by some as a clean player who could eventually overtake the career home run record established by Bonds, who had been linked to possible drug use through the federal investigation. Rodriguez subsequently admitted that he used a performance-enhancing substance from 2001 to 2003.

The Times reported in June that Sosa was among those who tested positive in 2003, the first time he had been publicly tied to performance-enhancing drugs. Sosa became a national figure with the Chicago Cubs in 1998, when he and Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals engaged in a celebrated race to overtake Roger Maris’s single-season home run record of 61. McGwire’s image suffered tremendously when, at a Congressional hearing in 2005, he refused to answer questions about steroid use.

By 2003, Ramirez had long since established himself as one of baseball’s best hitters. Ortiz, however, was less known. In 2002, the Minnesota Twins effectively cut him after failing to trade him. He signed a bargain contract with the Red Sox and began the 2003 season as a backup.

Ortiz quickly blossomed, setting personal highs in home runs (31) and runs batted in (101). He surpassed those numbers in each of the next four seasons.

Ramirez, with his dreadlocks and quirky behavior, and Ortiz, with his gregarious personality and portly build, formed a dynamic tandem on and off the field. They seemed to feed off each other — not to mention demoralize opponents — by hitting back-to-back in the heart of the lineup.

In 2004, they helped the Red Sox overcome a 3-0 series deficit against the Yankees in the American League Championship Series. The Red Sox then swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series to end decades of heartbreak in Boston. Ortiz had a game-winning home run and a game-winning hit against the Yankees and was named the most valuable player of that series. Ramirez was named the World Series M.V.P. after going 7 for 17 at the plate with a home run.

Three years after winning that first title, Ramirez and Ortiz returned Boston to another World Series, where they defeated the Colorado Rockies.

The pairing was split last season when the Red Sox traded Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers after team officials grew concerned that he was not playing hard in response to a contract dispute. In Los Angeles, Ramirez took off again, becoming popular among the fans and leading the Dodgers to the playoffs.

But Ramirez’s hero status in Los Angeles took a hit in May when he was suspended after baseball officials learned that he had been prescribed a fertility drug often used by bodybuilders after they stopped using steroids. When Ramirez was suspended, he issued a statement that appeared to maneuver around his 2003 test results.

“I do want to say one other thing,” Ramirez said. “I’ve taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons.”

That five-year period extended back to 2004, which excludes the 2003 test.

Since returning from his suspension, Ramirez has been widely accepted by the home fans. In 48 games this season, he has compiled a .327 average and has hit 11 home runs.

Ortiz, meanwhile, has been in a sharp decline. He had an operation on his wrist last year and missed nearly a third of the season. He started this year in a slump and did not hit his first home run until a month and a half into the season. Since June 1, however, he has hit 12 more home runs.

In 2007, Ortiz said that he used to buy a protein shake in the Dominican Republic when he was younger and did not know if it contained a performance-enhancing drug.

“I don’t do that anymore because they don’t have the approval for that here, so I know that, so I’m off buying things at the GNC back in the Dominican Republic,” Ortiz told The Boston Herald. He added: “I don’t know if I drank something in my youth, not knowing it.”

In February, he said that players who tested positive for steroids should be suspended for an entire season — about 100 games more than the current policy requires for a first offense.

David Waldstein contributing reporting from Boston.

Home Runs and Hypocrisy

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090525/zirin

Home Runs and Hypocrisy: The Shaming of Manny Ramirez
By Dave Zirin

You would think that Manny Ramirez was caught fighting pit bulls alongside Martha Stewart.

ESPN's Bill Simmons says that he is "confronting my worst nightmare." Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports believes that it is time to talk about "lifetime bans." Boston Globe writer Tony Massarotti says, "everyone is guilty until proven innocent."

The sports radio and comment boards have been cesspools of racism. It's always easy to hate, especially someone who plays a game for a living and makes millions of dollars.

All I know is this: thanks to Major League Baseball's hypocritical, idiotic and altogether morally bankrupt steroid policy, the sport will be without one of its premier attractions for fifty games, someone I would pay to watch at batting practice. Yes, Manny Ramirez, the finest right-handed hitter of his generation, has been sent to the showers and forced to surrender $7.7 million in salary after testing positive for what was initially called a "performance-enhancing substance."

The decision ends a stretch where the former World Series MVP was reviving baseball in Los Angeles, leading the Dodgers to a 21-8 start and a record thirteen straight wins at home to open the season. Los Angeles, a town built on artifice and home to hordes of performance-enhanced entertainers, not to mention led by a performance-enhanced governor, now demands purity of its athletes. This is not a column that aims to "defend" Manny Ramirez, but condemn Major League Baseball's steroid idiocy. Besides, the quizzically quirky Ramirez is not at this point defending himself. Ramirez will not appeal the suspension and apologized, issuing a brief statement, which read in part: "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." But MLB, in a typically classy move, has leaked to the press that Ramirez tested positive for the female fertility drug HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin. Steroid specialists have fanned out across the airwaves explaining that HCG is used to increase testosterone levels, usually after a heavy steroid cycle.

Former AL MVP, author of Juiced, and admitted steroid user Jose Canseco, who pleaded guilty last November to a misdemeanor of trying to bring HCG across the Mexican border illegally, also weighed in: "It could be that a player used it because he used steroids and went cold-turkey and needed HCG to get his [testoterone] levels back to normal."

The use of a "female fertility drug" also has sports radio hosts in a pubescent tizzy asking if "Manny is a mommy" and ESPN's Jayson Stark making an "octo-mom" joke.

From the juvenile to the pious, President Obama's press flack Robert Gibbs took time out from explaining why torturers are above the law to tell us, "It's a tragedy, it's a shame." There is a tragedy and a shame afoot, but it is not rooted in the choices of one player. It's in a baseball culture that continues to think embarrassing individual players and feeding on the resentment of fans is the best path to cleaning up the sport. Manny has now joined Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and many others as permanently stained with a scarlet S. No Hall of Fame, no old timers' games and a life as a cautionary tale.

Meanwhile we all get taken to the cleaners. We have billionaire owners making scapegoats of millionaire players to soothe our anxieties about the game and our lives. Meanwhile these same owners sit like pashas in a baseball palace that could be called the House That Steroids Built.

The man who wrote Juiced knows when a cycle has run its course. Canseco said that he believes the coverage on steroids in baseball has become "overkill" and the spotlight should now be on MLB and the players association. He called it "a complete conspiracy." He's absolutely correct. Baseball owners love conspiracies. For more than twenty years they have conspired to attain public funds for ballparks. In 2008, they collectively conspired not to sign the best hitter in the game, Barry Bonds. Now they are committed to the project of keeping the focus on the players, and off of themselves. We shouldn't let them. If Manny Ramirez is guilty of anything, it's being caught in between baseball's clubhouse culture and public sanctimony.

During the baseball's Summer of Love in 1998, when Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs and Sammy Sosa smacked 66, the money came pouring in. No one cared that McGwire and Sosa looked like a pair of defensive tackles. Soon publicly funded stadiums were included in budgets for Washington, DC, New York City and Minnesota. The home run became the most marketable baseball item since peanuts and crackerjacks and no one wanted to look behind the curtain. It was sports. It was entertainment. It was an escape. Then came 2001, when Barry Bonds hit 73, and all of a sudden we were supposed to be collectively sick at the thought of a home run. As baseball writer Adrian Burgos (Playing America's Game: Baseball, Latinos, and the Color Line) said, "What continues to fascinate me is how MLB leadership is willing to allow individual players to take the full brunt of the collective failure of leadership. Today, pundits have ranted in at times rabid tones about the players who make millions for their role while those who make the hundred of millions (and even have billion- dollar stadiums constructed for them on the public dole) continue to profit. How many stadiums have been built since then and at what cost? All the wealth that has been accumulated at that level is in my mind just as, if not more, offensive, since the owners act as if they were not enablers and co-dependents as their players shot up, ingested and otherwise partook in performance-enhancing drugs."

We should always remember that former Texas Rangers owner George W. Bush made steroid persecution a recurring theme of his time in office, as long as owners were spared the spotlight. The hypocrisy should shame owners toward contrition--but they will happily crack some golden eggs, as long as it means that the goose that laid them lives. Even though come contract time, it's all about the numbers on your stat page, and not the number of clean tests. As baseball fan and poet Martin Espada told me, "Baseball is the Main Street of sports. (Think Cooperstown.) It's full of history and nostalgia, and paved with the bricks of hypocrisy. Now it's the rhetoric of the 'Drug War,' handed down from the Nixon White House forty years ago to MLB and ESPN today."

He is absolutely correct. We are supposed to tsk-tsk at players who are supposed to "just say no" to their addictions to fitness and monster stats, when their success at the park is our addiction as well. We also have yet to truly take owners to task for their addictions to public money and send them to detox.

Dave Zirin is the author of “A People’s History of Sports in the United States” (The New Press) Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.

Ramirez blindsided everyone but Jose Canseco

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-spw-streeter-manny8-2009may08,0,5943246.story

KURT STREETER
Manny Ramirez blindsided everyone but Jose Canseco
Canseco voiced his doubts about Ramirez being drug-free. The admitted drug cheat and eternal conspiracy theorist was right -- again. Maybe next time we'll listen more closely.
May 7, 2009

On a day when we've been blindsided, a day we've found yet another hero has feet of clay, the great sage Jose Canseco strikes again.

Last month I sat in an auditorium at USC and listened to Canseco dish his doubts about baseball, drug use and Manny Ramirez.

There's something fishy about Ramirez, Canseco concluded. Why, he wondered, had it taken so long this off-season to sign one of baseball's premier power hitters? And why was the contract Ramirez signed so short: two years, with an option to leave after one.

In Canseco's mind -- the mind of an admitted drug cheat, the mind of a skeptical conspiracy theorist who happens to have been proven right time and again -- the powers that be in baseball either knew Ramirez was using, or they strongly suspected it. Otherwise, this off-season, someone would have quickly signed a supreme force like No. 99 to a bigger contract, no matter the economy, no matter the "Mannywood" flakiness.

It was a conclusion that came from his gut. Canseco lacked hard proof, but he stated Ramirez "is most likely, 90%" on the list of 104 players that failed a drug test in 2003; a test that was supposed to be anonymous but that snared Alex Rodriguez when his name was leaked.

Right now, with so little information from baseball, the Dodgers, or their left-fielder, we don't know if Ramirez was on that particular list. Could well be. Nobody can argue otherwise. Maybe a positive result in 2003 made baseball's drug testers zero-in on Ramirez. Maybe he was on the list and when he came up dirty more recently, Bud Selig and his crew, long guilty of skirting around the issue of drugs, figured even they'd had enough: The mega-star in baseball's second biggest market must walk the plank.

No matter the exact truth, we have to give Canseco credit. He stuck his head out and was willing to go where so many fear. Not that I needed more proof, but after today, every time Canseco says anything about drugs, I'm listening with serious intent.

He was certainly a lot more candid than Ramirez. Last month, when I went to Ramirez with Canseco's allegation, he sat in front of his locker and gave me a deer-in-the-headlights gaze, a sly laugh, and a calm evasion. "I got no comment," he said. "Nothing to say about that. What can I say? I don't even know the guy."

I wanted to believe. Just as I want to believe all of our great performers. We all do.

But we can't be ignorant anymore. Derek Jeter? Lance Armstrong? Rafael Nadal? Tom Brady? Kobe? All of the hockey players we're seeing in the NHL playoffs, a league that doesn't test for drugs except during the regular season? They might all be clean. Then again, they might not. A year ago, baseball sages were heralding Alex Rodriguez as the last great, unsullied power-hitter of his generation. What a scam. I'm sorry, but nobody is beyond reproach anymore.

It's pretty simple, and pretty sad. If we want to see things straight we need to be like Canseco: willing, like a skeptical conspiracy theorist, to put hard pieces of the puzzle together. Willing to come up with answers we don't want to hear. Willing to hold at least a small level of doubt about everyone.

Either that or we get blindsided, again and again, just like we've been blindsided today.

kurt.streeter@latimes.com

Is Jose Canseco Ever Wrong?

http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2009/04/06/jose-canseco-says-90-chance-manny-ramirez-is-on-steroids-list/

Jose Canseco Says '90 Percent Chance' Manny Ramirez Is on 'The List'
Posted Apr 06, 2009
By Will Brinson

Filed Under: Dodgers, MLB Media Watch, MLB Rumors

Jose Canseco is well past the "naming names" stage of his steroid accusations. However, as ridiculous and irresponsible as Canseco seems with his chatter about this player and that player, he has, for the most part, been correct.

And the latest player that's the target of Canseco's pseudo-slanderous steroid chatter is Manny Ramirez, which is a most shocking revelation (although no more shocking than when Canseco accused Alex Rodriguez).

Canseco spoke to at the Brovard Auditorium on the USC campus recently and the Los Angeles Times' Kurt Streeter caught up with him afterwards, specifically interested about why Canseco stated that Ramirez's "name is most likely, 90 percent" on the list of players who used steroids.

Canseco asked questions as to the status of Ramirez receiving a long-term contract and why owners were so hesitant to sign him as "evidence" as to why Ramirez used steroids, but admitted he had "no way of knowing" whether Ramirez was guilty of using PEDs.

And that, in my mind, makes this allegation seem pretty silly: Ramirez didn't get a long-term deal because there was no chance of receiving the money he wanted over the course of a long-term contract. Additionally, he's 36, so it's not like every team out there should have been scrambling to lock him up in a 12-year uber-deal anyway. Oh, and perhaps Canseco missed it, but the economy collapsed while Ramirez was trying to get paid.

Manny, by the way, laughed off Canseco's allegations when Streeter followed up on the discussion, stating that, ""I got no comment, nothing to say about that. What can I say? I don't even know the guy."

In other words: Yes, Canseco has been right before, and plenty of times. Yes, he broke open the steroid scandal. But in this case, it just seems like he's in the same desperate corner of his, swinging wildly with names in the hopes that another name in a sea full of guilty players manages to stick on the wall and he can score a tiny extension on his 15 minutes in the spotlight.

Ramirez suspended 50 games for drug violation

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AozPbdpnRxDcG.ttoQ3gr6URvLYF?slug=ap-dodgers-ramirez-drugs

Ramirez suspended 50 games for drug violation
By BETH HARRIS and RONALD BLUM, AP Sports Writers
5-7-9

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Manny Ramirez joined a growing lineup of All-Stars linked to drugs Thursday, with the dreadlocked slugger banished for 50 games by a sport that cannot shake free from scandal.

The Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder was suspended by Major League Baseball for a drug violation, adding a further stamp to what will forever be known as the Steroids Era.

“It’s a dark day for baseball and certainly for this organization,” Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti told reporters on the field at Dodger Stadium. “This organization will never condone anything that isn’t clean.”

Ramirez said he did not take steroids and was given medication by a doctor that contained a banned substance. A person familiar with the details of the suspension said Ramirez used the female fertility drug HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the banned substance wasn’t announced.

“As tough as it is for us, it’s pretty tough for Manny, too,” Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. “I know he’s the one that did the wrong thing and nobody is trying to cover that up, but it’s still something that I know he’s sorry about.”

HCG is popular among steroid users because it can mitigate the side effects of ending a cycle of the drugs. The body may stop producing testosterone when users go off steroids, which can cause sperm counts to decrease and testicles to shrink.

Ramirez’s suspension was based not on a spring training urine test result but rather evidence obtained afterward, a second person familiar with the suspension said, speaking on condition of anonymity because those details were not released. MLB had concluded the spring test was positive, but the person said the players’ association would have challenged the result because of “testing issues.”

Ranked 17th on the career home run list with 533, Ramirez became the most prominent baseball player to be penalized for drugs. His ban came three months after Alex Rodriguez admitted using steroids, and at a time when Barry Bonds is under federal indictment and Roger Clemens is being investigated by a federal grand jury to determine whether he lied when he told Congress he never used steroids or human growth hormone. And Miguel Tejada was sentenced in March to one year of probation after pleading guilty in federal court to misleading Congress about the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

No matter which way baseball turns, the legitimacy of many of its recent home run and pitching records is being questioned. Sluggers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa have been tainted by steroid allegations, Rafael Palmeiro tested positive for a banned drug and Jose Canseco said he used them.

In every case, players once believed to be locks for the Hall of Fame may now be locked out.

“You can’t have arguably the greatest pitcher of our era, arguably the two greatest players of our era and now another very, very good player be under this cloud of suspicion and not feel like it has ruined it for everybody,” Atlanta star Chipper Jones said.

“But what are you going to do? You can’t be born in a different era. It is the Steroid Era,” he said.

Colletti and Torre said they found out about Ramirez’s suspension during an early morning phone call from team owner Frank McCourt. Both said they were surprised and saddened at the news.

Torre spoke to the rest of the team during a closed-door meeting before batting practice.

“The mood was sad in the clubhouse,” he said. “You can’t have someone who’s as much of an impact player and personality as Manny missing without it affecting people.”

The 36-year-old Ramirez tried to make amends right away, telling the Dodgers and fans he was sorry for “this whole situation.”

“Recently, I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me,” Ramirez said in a statement issued by the players’ union.

“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.”

Baseball added HCG to its list of banned substances last year.

His suspension was first reported by the Los Angeles Times on its Web site.

While Ramirez had little to say, Canseco was quick to explain why someone might use HCG.

“It could be that a player used it because he used steroids and went cold-turkey and needed HCG to get his levels back to normal. I had to use it when I quit steroids cold-turkey,” Canseco, who pleaded guilty last November to a misdemeanor of trying to bring HCG across the Mexican border into the United States illegally, told the AP. “I had to go to a doctor to get it and get my levels back.”

Because MLB imposed the suspension as required by the drug agreement, the Dodgers cannot further discipline Ramirez. He is allowed to work out with the Dodgers but must be out of uniform when the stadium gates open for games.

Ramirez was not mentioned in the Mitchell Report, MLB’s official report on drug use, and there had not been whispers that he was among the sport’s juiced players.

“It’s kind of shocking that he got caught up in anything, honestly. Manny likes to play stupid, but he’s a pretty bright guy. And he’s definitely aware of a lot of things that he tries to act like he’s completely oblivious to,” said Cincinnati pitcher Bronson Arroyo, Ramirez’s former Boston teammate.

Ramirez’s agent, Scott Boras, and the players’ association had gathered materials for a possible appeal to an arbitrator, but Ramirez decided not to file one because he didn’t want to risk missing significant time in the second half of the season, the person familiar with details of the suspension said. The union said merely that he waived his right to contest the suspension.

Reaction to Ramirez’s ban came swiftly, from major league clubhouses to the White House.

“It’s a tragedy. It’s a shame. My sense is, it’s a great embarrassment on Major League Baseball,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

The penalty left the best team in the majors without its driving force and free spirit for nearly one-third of the season.

Ramirez’s suspension began Thursday, a day after the Dodgers broke the modern major league record for a home winning streak, opening the season 13-0. Barring any postponements, he will be able to return to the Dodgers for the July 3 game at San Diego. Ramirez will lose $7,650,273 of his $25 million salary.

Rodriguez and Ramirez are the two highest-paid players in the majors. With this suspension, six of the top 17 home run hitters in history now have been covered by the cloud of performance-enhancing drugs.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig couldn’t comment on the suspension because of provisions of the management-union drug agreement, spokesman Rich Levin said.

Ramirez became the fourth player suspended this year under the major league program, following Philadelphia reliever J.C. Romero, Yankees pitcher Sergio Mitre and San Francisco pitcher Kelvin Pichardo.

The Dodgers began the 50-game stretch without Ramirez on Thursday night against Washington. Juan Pierre received loud applause when he was introduced as Ramirez’s replacement in the starting lineup, but there were scattered boos when he came to the plate for the first time.

Losing Ramirez to suspension could be a huge blow financially for the Dodgers. The slugger has been single-handedly responsible for increasing attendance, merchandise sales and interest in the team, besides helping it win the NL West after his late-season arrival in 2008.

Los Angeles even renamed a section of seats in left field at Dodger Stadium “Mannywood” in his honor. Hours after the suspension, the team removed a reference to those seats from its Web site.

Torre, however, insisted Ramirez is welcome anytime.

“The thing that was toughest for Manny is how he disappointed everybody,” he said. “He loved it here, and he loves how the fans get turned on by him. He was devastated.”

Associated Press Baseball Writer Ron Blum reported from New York, with AP Sports Writer Beth Harris in Los Angeles. AP Sports Writers Dan Gelston in Philadelphia, Joe Kay in Cincinnati, R.B. Fallstrom in St. Louis, Stephen Wilson in London and Steve Wine in Miami, National Writer Ben Walker in New York and AP Writer Donna Cassata contributed to this report.

Dodgers Get Manny Ramirez for two prospects

http://sportsblogs.latimes.com/sports_baseball_dodgers/2008/07/dodgers-get-man.html

Dodgers Get Manny Ramirez for two prospects
July 31, 2008

Andrew and Brian are away from their desks this afternoon, probably dumbstruck and shocked that the Dodgers were able to pull the trigger on pretty much The trade of the year.

According to Bill Shaikin of the Times, the Blue Crew didn't have to give up all that much to get the controversial slugger:

The Red Sox are expected to cover the $7 million remaining on Ramirez's salary, enabling the Dodgers to meet owner Frank McCourt's reported mandate that any trade not add to the team payroll.

The Dodgers are expected to trade two prospects -- third baseman Andy LaRoche and pitcher Bryan Morris -- as part of a three-team deal. The Red Sox are expected to get Jason Bay from the Pittsburgh Pirates to replace Ramirez in the Boston outfield, with the Pirates getting those two prospects from the Dodgers and two more from the Red Sox.

Ramirez, 36, has waived his no-trade clause, something that he promised he would do earlier this week when he gave his latest press conference.

Two days ago in an interview with ESPN. Ramirez was extremely harsh on the BoSox, an organization where he was part of two world championships:

"The Red Sox don’t deserve a player like me. During my years here I’ve seen how they have mistreated other great players when they didn’t want them to try to turn the fans against them.

"The Red Sox did the same with guys like Nomar Garciaparra and Pedro Martinez, and now they do the same with me. Their goal is to paint me as the bad guy. I love Boston fans, but the Red Sox don’t deserve me. I’m not talking about money. Mental peace has no price and I don’t have peace here."

The details of the trade are as follows: Jason Bay will go to the Red Sox, Manny will go to the Dodgers and Pittsburgh will get four prospects, two from LA and two from Boston:

The last-place Pirates, looking for young talent, gave up their star outfielder and got reliever Craig Hansen and outfielder Brandon Moss from Boston and third baseman Andy LaRoche and pitcher Bryan Morris from the Dodgers.

LaRoche, Moss and Hansen will join Pittsburgh and Morris will go to Class A Hickory.

- Tony Pierce