Opinion

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.

Dear Randy,

You were once the most imposing pitcher in baseball. Batters would cower in fear as you stood to face them on the mound. Because of your dominating presence, you were able to rack up wins and strikeouts in bundles. Heck, even a bird didn't stand a chance against you.

While I believe your quest for 300 wins is noble and would solidify your already solidified Hall of Fame potential, my favorite memories of you are being overtaken by more recent ones.

Not only can I name five very good reasons why the man above, the greatest baseball player to ever play the game, should be sitting in baseball's Hall of Fame.

Pete Rose is the face of America's "true" baseball player.

In his career Rose had more hits, and played more games, than any other player in history. Yet he is still to this day on the outside looking in at the one thing his career needs to be complete.

As I said above, there are plenty of reasons why this man should be in the Hall.

It has been nearly two weeks since Sports Illustrated writer Selena Roberts released her unauthorized biography, A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, and the book is still at the center of controversy.

Roberts portrays the New York Yankees superstar as an insecure egomaniac that sources informed her began to use performance enhancing drugs as a teenager when he played shortstop at Miami’s Westminster Christian High School.

During the 86-year-old "Curse of the Bambino," Fenway Park was populated by die hard Red Sox fans who cared only about the product on the field. These fans did not need anything more than a Red Sox win to be entertained.

It was an era when most of the fans were men, men who drank beer, men who cursed, men who worked hard and wanted nothing more than a World Series.

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Johan Santana, CC Sabathia, Tim Lincemcum.

All three generally considered the best pitchers in the game. But with the Toronto Blue Jay’s major league best 23-12 record, we can finally put Roy Halladay into the true upper-echelon of starting pitchers.

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Winning the All-Star Game recently became so unimportant, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig felt he had to do something.

Selig decided the league that wins the annual Summer Classic gets home field advantage in the World Series.

The All-Star Game is played purely to entertain.

However, there was a time when it was a baseball game that each league wanted to win just for the sake of winning.