New York Nine

If you haven't heard, one of my favorite baseball players to talk about/bash who is currently serving a 50 game suspension for PEDs Manny Ramirez is somehow fourth in All-Star voting and needless to say I'm pretty livid. Who knows, maybe people are smarter than I give them credit for, maybe this is some sort of huge inside joke, a nation of baseball fans collectively choosing to be ironic and use the platform of the all-star game to point out hypocrisy in the baseball rulebook, maybe, but I'm not buying it. Indeed, as there is no rule saying players who are suspended for steroids cannot be voted into the all-star game the fans have every right technically to vote Mannywood into the all-star game, but that right does not necessarily it just. For sure, he's a great player and a very popular one at that, but the guy cheated and he was found out and punished for it. Doesn't anyone else find it a bit ridiclous that he can be simultanously accliamed and villified at the same time? No it is not fair to the game and more importantly its not fair to the many worthy National League Outfielders who have actually played most of this season and are deserving of the honor.



Now I realize that my ranting and raving seems kind of ridiclous, after all its an all-star game and I've written here numerous times about not coming down too hard on steroid users. After all, its a game, a pretty meaningless game that is meant to promote the stars of the game, spotlight some nice stories like Josh Hamilton and just be some fun, but that's missing the point. Sure Manny is a star of the game, his "Manny being Manny" antics have made him beloved by many in Boston and now Los Angeles, but the bottom line is HE BROKE THE RULES. It's pretty simple and I don't see why people think this is perticularly difficult, there are a very concrete set of rules and regulations for baseball and indeed in life, if you break one of those, perticularly one of the more serious ones that has you miss fifty games in a season it just doesn't make sense that you can be simulateously praised as well, its asinine. It's like someone getting arrested for breaking and entering and being put in jail and the next week he's elected to be mayor or given the keys to the city, you don't do something like that to a criminal because well they're not deserving of commendation, they broke the rules! The combination of the two is just completely incompatible by their very nature, making this development all the more puzzling.




Further, the All-Star game is reserved for the "all-stars" of the league, how can manny be recognized as one of the best in the game when he played maybe 25 games so far this year! Is he leading the league in any statisical category? Is he making any big plays for his team? No, because he's not playing! Why make him an all-star when there are plenty of worthy candidates of players who are bona fide stars or guys on the verge of stardom? How about Jay Bruce with 14 home runs already, Adam Dunn having a career year with his best batting average ever and already 42RBIs? There are countless guys out there who are plenty deserving of the honor who didn't get caught breaking one of the more publicized laws of baseball.




Maybe I should be happy about this development, after all I believe that Manny and many of the other steroid users should be recognized for their achievements, perticularly in the hall of fame and it seems that the fans are on my side. They more than anyone shape the game and they have pretty unanmously said that we don't care that they used steriods, these are the guys we love, we still think they're great and we're going to promote them and they have every right to according to the rules as they stand, but I say these rules need to be changed. The fact that that such hypocrisy is running rampant in baseball is shameful and Bud Selig should be calling an emergency meeting of the owners to fix this immediately and its not that hard, its pretty simple: Any player suspended, due to violation of Major League Baseball's drug policy, shall be ineligible for the next All-Star Game! Is that so hard? Because for all the work Bud is supposedly doing, he's allowing a lack of regulation to truly undermine the effects of suspension. After all, if you were a baseball player and you were considering taking steroids or continuing to take steroids the example of manny is a pleasant one, you can get caught punished, but ultimately you'll still be the good guy! It sickens me and I hope I don't have to watch that baggy pants bastard trotting around the outfield in Saint Louis, he broke the rules and should be punished, not praised.