Ramirez Last Great Slugger?

First appeared on May 14th, 2009
in The Lebanon Reporter

When Major League Baseball announced they had slapped outfielder Manny Ramirez with an enormous 50 game suspension for a drug violation Dodgers fans weren’t the only ones disappointed. Apologists dismiss his flaky antics as “Manny being Manny” but those card carrying members of the “Ramirez Haters Club” were disgusted when he took the field with a water bottle in his back pocket or disappeared inside the scoreboard at Fenway (while he was supposed to be playing left field). Many agree that far too often Ramirez has went out of his way to stick a finger in the eye of the one sport still played with a perceptible level of reverence. In both demanding to be traded off one of the best teams in baseball and high-fiving fans while fielding a ball in play, Ramirez has proven himself to be the closest thing to Dennis Rodman Major League Baseball can muster.
So it is with all the hullabaloo surrounding steroids in baseball we as a nation find ourselves once again captivated by it all. Try as they may some can’t shake the image of baseball commissioner Bud Selig as the crotchety cowhand burning asterisks into the hides of a seemingly never-ending string of superstars with his red hot cattle prod. Asterisks meant to stand forever as a reminder to future generations that the performance of these men wasn’t authentic.
As the doping drumbeat reached what we all hoped was a crescendo, some clung to a quiet hope that Manny Ramirez was the last real slugger in baseball. Not a juiced up modern day version of Ty Cobb, but the real deal. An athlete fueled only by pure adrenaline and the skills he’s been blessed with yet still an absolute killer capable of forcing even the craftiest of major league pitchers into the stress center or an early retirement.
As if his mercurial nature, pine tar coated helmet and frumpy uniform weren’t enough, most would guess Ramirez was born devoid of skill after seeing him scramble in the outfield for loose balls like he was barefoot on ice. But he can hit. Just ask Cubs fans. He is one of the toughest outs in baseball and, while openly loathing him, part of me wanted so much to believe his numbers were legitimate. For what true sports fan doesn’t harbor a desire to witness greatness in any given sport. Those rare few set apart by the perfect combination of genetics and mechanics. For me, until last week, that was Manny Ramirez.
Perhaps it’s simply my selfish side longing for the day I’m afghan cloaked and rocker bound telling my grandchildren about him. Their little blue eyes staring back with wide eyed wonder as if I had uttered the names Ruth, Cobb or Mantle. Of course since I Nautilus three times a day and ingest more calories than Michael Phelps and a pride of Kalahari Lion combined, the year will most likely be 2109 and my grandchildren will probably be teleported next to me on the couch in holographic form as we watch the Cubs making that dreaded long road trip to Mars.
But with Manny’s suspension of course now all of that is toast. Perhaps as a nation we need not make an effort to raise suspicion, convict or sentence Ramirez, wait Major League Baseball has already done that; rather it may be time we all looked in the mirror. It may be the problems with baseball run deeper than first believed; for it could be they serve as a harbinger of trouble within our larger culture as a whole.