Manny: What Does It All Mean?

Manny Ramirez was drafted by a cellar-dwelling team in our founding editor’s fantasy baseball league this year – which means the impact of his 50-game suspension on our daily lives is pretty minimal.

Seriously, he’s not on our fantasy baseball team (or the team of anybody who’s chasing us) – so why should we care?

And in a larger sense, Ramirez’s sad song is not a new tune.

We’ve heard it before, from Bonds, McGwire, Canseco, Palmeiro, Clemens, A-Rod, Tejada …

In fact, we addressed this seemingly interminable “Mudville moment” in our weepy Baseball’s Betrayal post – which was published the day after the A-Roid trauma broke back in February.

This isn’t an individual crisis, people – it’s an institutional collapse, a systemic cancer on our national past time that we’re quite frankly sick of writing about.

But then along comes Manny … and we have to relive it all over again.

And while we’re all out of tears for these millionaire cheaters, it’s hard to argue that the first major bust of the “post-Steroid era” didn’t also do a number on a sport desperate to move past its age of tarnished heroes.

And that hurts us – and the game we still love in spite of itself.

“This is very damaging to the brand of Major League Baseball,” said Ronn Torossian, a New York City PR pro. “(The sport) has claimed that previous high profile use was prior to tightening of the drug rules, but clearly that isn’t the case.”

Torossian, who runs the 5WPR firm, has represented dozens of leading athletes and entertainers including P Diddy, Roy Jones, Jr., and Jalen Rose. In other words, he understands the image implosion that Manny Management Inc. is probably dealing with right about now.

Still, he says MLB should be harsh on Ramirez, because it “sends a message.”

“Manny and the MLB are 2 different entities, and MLB made that clear with the suspension,” Torossian told us. “Clearly MLB is at odds with Manny and has taken steps to distance (the game) from him as such. Its similar to the brawl in the NBA some years ago … the NBA suspended players and spoke loudly and clearly.”

But is speaking “loudly and clearly” enough to save baseball?

We’re not sure.

After all, the hits keep ‘a comin’ … and not the good ones.

Manny also compounded his conundrum by issuing an incredibly evasive, misleading statement.

He accepted blame and took responsibility, to be sure, but in doing so he tried to simultaneously distance his infraction from the steroid stigma.

Obviously, that strategy blew up in his face when it was revealed the drug he allegedly took is used by athletes when they come off of a steroid cycle.

Hopefully, fifty games and the loss of $8 million will indeed speak “loudly and clearly” to Ramirez – and every other MLB player.

The message? Steroids are banned. Stop using them … or else.

Of course had baseball spoken loudly and clearly on those two points a lot sooner, perhaps it wouldn’t be dealing with such a protracted, debilitating crisis of character.

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