Say It Ain't So, Manny

At 10 minutes before noon last Thursday Jimmy Parker, a businessman from the Massachusetts town of Weymouth, walked into the Absolut Clubhouse at Fenway Park in Boston and asked, "Captain, have you heard the news about Manny Ramirez?" "What news?" "MLB suspended him 50 games for using steroids."

Since we were about to start a luncheon of The Great Fenway Park Writers Series featuring Dr. Jean Rhodes, the world's leading mentoring authority and authorized co-biographer of Becoming Manny, the extraordinary book about the enigmatic slugger of the Dodgers and ex of the Indians/Red Sox, I told Parker, in my role as chairman of The Writers Series, don't tell Dr. Rhodes, it might upset her before her talk.

My counsel to Parker, a friend and Red Sox Fantasy Camp teammate, was unnecessary, because moments later a CBS radio reporter showed up to ask Dr. Rhodes about Manny and steroids. At the end of the event she scrolled down her BlackBerry to show me a long list of media requests about Manny Ramirez, because his story was all over cable news and radio talk shows (and Friday it would be front page news in leading American newspapers).

As Dr. Rhodes' friend, I didn't want her to lose focus. My concern was misplaced. She gave a terrific and well-received presentation about her hugely complicated subject before a critical audience that included Red Sox president and CEO Larry Lucchino.

The answer Dr. Rhodes gave to the CBS reporter, and in subsequent interviews was, "No, Manny would not knowingly have used steroids. There is nothing in his history suggesting such usage, because few players in baseball have ever had a greater work ethic than Manny", she said.

"Even as a teenager growing in the New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights he would get up before daybreak, tie a rope around his waist and pull a heavy black tire up a long steep hill to strengthen his body, and he did it every day. His commitment to training is ceaseless, a fact attested to by teammates, past and present. If you look at his statistics as a ballplayer, there's a consistency that does not reflect chronic steroid usage." (Ramirez has averaged 37.5 home runs over 13 full major league seasons; 45 and 26 the high and low numbers.)

Dr. Rhodes added, "Manny is naïve and trusting. If a doctor prescribed steroids for medical reasons and told him it was not banned by major league baseball, he would not have challenged his doctor.

There's not a sports writer alive, not in Cleveland, Boston or LA, that knows him better than Jean Rhodes, or has spent more time endeavoring to penetrate his complex personality -- a study that consumed four years of this gifted scholar's life. (Dr. Rhodes is a professor of psychology at UMass Boston)

So, did he or didn't he?

Jean Rhodes doesn't think he did, but she's too intelligent, by any standard you choose to measure, to think her opinion ultimately matters to the sports writing fraternity of the USA, almost all of whom have pronounced Ramirez guilty; but wait, not only "guilty", but guilty beyond question -- and some of the judgments rendered have been rendered with glee, if not malice. (Barely mentioned were the 15 previous drug tests he had passed.)

Some of this, guilty before trial, can be blamed on 24/7 news, which consumes the media world and causes otherwise thoughtful journalists to weigh in when there is probable cause for caution. But didn't Ramirez confess? Yes, he "confessed", but he also claims he was unaware he had used a banned substance.

It is here I take issue with the rush to judgment evidenced by far too many journalists. Not just the odious gotcha element within the profession, because they are beyond redemption, but with those I consider decent and responsible men and women who, in the matter of Manny Ramirez, nonetheless joined the riotous chorus demanding his head -- dreadlocks and all.

That said, I have no brief to make in Ramirez's behalf. I admire his extraordinary gifts as a ballplayer, and, like Dr. Rhodes, I am fascinated by his peculiar persona, but I also know for all the money he has made playing baseball, including $160 million with the Red Sox, he has shown little charitable impulse (it's alleged a $1 million pledge for Boston under-served youth was never paid).

In my value system and commitment to a high civic ethic, a spirit of sharing is more important than whether Manny Ramirez knowingly did drugs, but media has ignored that facet of the story. They appear not to care whether he's cheap, only if he cheats.

Alex Rodriquez, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro, and now Manny Ramirez, have had their career achievements impugned; once certain as Hall of Fame members they are now unlikely to make it to Cooperstown. Would their exclusion, based upon drug usage, proven or implied, be justified? I guess I am an agnostic about that, which puts me at odds with many baseball fans; but I have no such doubt about the need to honor the very foundation upon which American jurisprudence is founded, innocent until proven guilty; a fundamental of the law that applies to all American -- even sport stars. Apparently, media hordes have no such reservations.

You may not care about baseball. You may have only marginal knowledge of Manny Ramirez, but the principle at stake is infinitely greater than the career of any sports figure -- and now it hangs in the balance.

Oh, I started with Jimmy Parker, so I will end with Jimmy Parker. When the luncheon was over and he was walking out of Fenway, he said, referring to the timeliness of the Manny story breaking minutes before Dr. Rhodes spoke, "Well, Captain, you have a great sense of timing."

I only wish I were that clever.

Comments

[HeresJohnny]

Sorry George, MLB caught him red-handed. In the spring, he submitted a sample that indicated higher than normal amounts of testosterone. They tested the sample to determine whether the elevated testosterone was natural or synthetic; it was synthetic. Investigators then asked for all his medical records, and they came back with a prescription for the HCG, which allows players coming off a steroids cycle to begin producing natural testosterone again. HCG, by the way, is one of the 55 chemicals explicitly banned by MLB, making the suspension a slam-dunk.

Manny, naive? How many people do you know are naive about something that could cost them their job? Please, come up with something better than that.

[CantStopUsNow]

Wrong. Synthetic testosterone can be caused by DHEA, which is NOT one of the 55 chemicals banned by the league. HCG is also presribed to males with low sperm counts. Manny is known to have smoked Marijuana throughout his life, so is it too crazy to think that maybe that resulted in a low sperm count and perhaps Ramirez would like to have more kids? Nah, let's just say he's guilty beyond question because, well, "we told you so."

[goesto11]

He passed 15 drug tests before he got caught.

In other words, he didn't get caught until he got caught.

[Terypat]

When a person has the ability and the money to be surrounded by the best of everything, then I would assume that Manny's doctors would be extra careful and go over with a fine tooth comb what could be prescribed for Manny to be sure he would not be in violation of MLB rules.

We are talking about all "professional" people here. No excuses!!!!!