It's not even because Manny Ramirez wears Los Angeles Dodger blue (OK, that's part of it).
In news I'm sure you'll hear from my fingers first, Ramirez has tested positive for human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG).
Although his agent, that bastion of credibility and integrity Scott Boras, tried at first to spin it away with a story about a prescribed medication for a personal ailment, I'm beginning to think that might not be the case.
Right off the bat, hCG is a female fertility drug.
Of course, I'm no doctor and I'm sure there are genuine maladies treated with prescriptions usually given to the opposite gender.
Unfortunately for Manny, he's about the billionth pro athlete to play dodgeball with performance-enhancing drug allegations/damning evidence bordering on proof.
We've all heard it before, many times—Alex Rodriguez said it was youthful indiscretion complicated by the burden of potential, J.C. Romero said he was assured the substance was clean by so-and-so, Barry Lamar Bonds said he thought it was flaxseed oil, Brian Roberts said he only did it once, Roger Clemens flat-out denied it (and still does last time I checked), Mark McGwire won't even acknowledge he played Major League Baseball, and so on.
I guess Manny and company get points for creativity. Give 'em credit, they did find new ground in terrain that best qualifies as scorched earth—that being the Land of Futile Attempts to Save What Little Is Left of My Reputation.
That's all they get, though, because further reasons for skepticism abound.
Manny has meekly surrendered to the suspension rather than appeal it while claiming the hot test wasn't actually his fault. The two make for an odd pairing—not conclusively ridiculous, but certainly odd.
Then there's this little inconvenient tidbit for Man-Ram and his lapdog BorAss—hCG is a known steroid adjunct.
It is popular in combination with anabolic steroids because it helps return testosterone production in the testes to pre-cycle levels.
In blunter terms, juicers take hCG to keep their [insert favorite euphemism for testicles] from shrinking like D.A.R.E. warned us they would. The meatheads also use it to restore any non-temperature-related shrinkage that may occur while everything else is swelling. Well, almost everything.
So, forgive me if I (like the rest of the world) am a little dubious of the attempts to explain away Ramirez' boo-boo.
Nope, I think I'll borrow from the late, great George Carlin to sum up Manny's story, "It's all bullsh*t and it's bad for ya."
Which brings me to the San Francisco Giants, America's favorite PED whipping boy (Barry Lamar Bonds), and the fans of both. Especially us fans.
For years now, we've been hearing how OUR team was the greatest enabler, OUR guy was the grossest offender.
Everyone showered praise and adulation on George Mitchell for taking a torch to Major League Baseball and its steroid offenders in his report. You'll remember his report singled out the former managing partner of the Giants, Peter Magowan, and General Manager Brian Sabean for their roles in the era's culture.
Unless I'm mistaken, the specific mention of the SF powers-that-be was the exception rather than the rule. Ol' George felt all the other teams were clean enough—their owners/GMs had apparently done their part.
Not Sabes and Magowan though.
For the record, I loathe Peter Magowan—he was an egomaniac who drove good people away from the club in an effort to glorify his role in the Orange and Black success. But his inclusion by name in the Mitchell Hatchet Job was a farce, which could've only been remedied by the inclusion of every owner's name.
The last sentence is true of Sabean as well.
That's the fantastic part of this whole mess.
It has to be the straw that breaks Denial's back, it's making a lot of people look really stupid, and we knew the moment was coming.
Manny was supposed to be a pure hitter, one of the best of all-time. He was supposed to be a tireless worker on the craft in addition to having the natural knack for it.
He was supposed to be a guy who was too one-dimensional to be on the junk. He was supposed to be too weird to go with the PED flow.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Furthermore, Ramirez pulls, not one, but two franchises with ENORMOUS media markets into the PED muck and splashes it all over some high-profile achievements.
Those would be the 2004/2007 World Series titles won by the Boston Red Sox as well as the Dodgers' record-breaking start to 2009 (not to mention the first playoff series win since 1988).
Only a homer or an incredibly naive individual would argue that Manny first started cycling after transitioning to LA. Nah, the Red Sox are in this just as deeply as the Bums—maybe even deeper since their feats are far more profound.
After all, Bonds' record will fall. So will the Bums' hot start. But those championships are eternal.
Regardless, I've got a message for those fans in Fenway and Chavez Ravine from those of us who call Pac Bell home: Welcome to the club, you're one of us now.
The media and public absolutely must tear at those accomplishments with similar vigor as they exhibited going after BLB's home run record and, by reference, Giants fans who rooted for Bonds.
I say similar because, while Barry's achievements were individual and Manny was a mere contributor, Ramirez was the definition of critical to the success of both Boston and Los Angeles.
Without him, it's almost certain that none of the above happens.
And that means the same taint people claim is all over SF and Barry is all over Beantown and La La Land.
It's also in New York, all over the Yankees. And in Seattle on the Mariners. And in Texas on the Rangers.
Oakland Athletics? St. Louis Cardinals? Florida Marlins? Detroit Tigers? Arizona Diamondbacks? Baltimore Orioles? Houston Astros? Philadelphia Phillies?
Yeses all around thanks to the likes of McGwire, Jose Canseco, Gary Sheffield, Jason Grimsley, Ivan Rodriguez, Roberts, Miguel Tejada, Romero, and Lenny Dykstra.
Unless, of course, you continue to believe these guys were only using when they got caught. Something that simply defies any semblance of logic considering there were no mechanisms in place to catch/punish anyone until just recently (arguably there still aren't since human growth hormone can only be detected via blood tests).
And the situation is far worse.
These are only organizations with players EXPLICITLY and firmly connected to PEDs. Not only that, the list of players spans decades.
So now can we agree that nobody is beyond suspicion? Now can we agree to never allow the words, "I can't believe [Player X] is doping" to leave our mouths? Now can we agree to stop with this self-righteous 'OUR guys are doing it the right way' absurdity?
Chances are, they're not.
Sooner or later, that specter is coming for YOU, too. And you'll react just like San Francisco, New York (maybe not NYC), and any other city who's seen one of its prodigal sons caught in the PED net.
Just like the City of Angels.
LA fans are rallying around their guy—they've got Manny's back. These would, presumably, be some of the same clowns who were littering the ground in left field at Dodger Stadium with syringes when BLB took his position during his final days in the Show.
The same people who mercilessly booed PED Public Enemy No. 1 for his juiced-up accolades.
Now it's THEIR guy and, suddenly, everyone's human. It's forgive and forget, as it tends to be when it's your team.
So let's stop pretending any fanbase can claim to be on moral high ground just because nobody from that team has been directly implicated. If you throw a syringe at the opposition, you better be ready to throw one at your own guy.
You better be ready to feel just as betrayed and gullible as those Bum fans who thought their superstar was any different.
It's very true that another of the game's stars becoming embroiled in the PED scandal is horrible news for MLB and the game of baseball. There is nothing funny or enjoyable about that part.
But the rest of it?
Hilarious.
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