MANY BEING MANNY

Manny Ramirez recently received his second suspension from Major League Baseball for using performance enhancing drugs. It was his third positive test, spanning eight years. The latest offense carried a 100-game ban without pay, (his last was a 50-game sentence when he played for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2009.) This time, Manny opted for retirement.

The phrase “Manny Being Manny” was coined in Boston, and quickly became nomenclature for his exasperating goofball antics. He gained a reputation for flagrant lapses in noggin usage. We have seen the highlight reel of him bumbling and tumbling around, slightly overweight, matted dreads bouncing, baggy uniform flopping, tattered helmet or field hat teetering like a loose bottle top. If he wasn’t one of the greatest right hand hitters to ever play the game, he probably wouldn’t have lasted very long in the big leagues. Therein lies the rub.

Now, anyone stupid enough to test positive for PEDs in this climate doesn’t deserve much defense. Manny tested positive twice, less than two years apart. Off-the-charts stupidity. Nevertheless, I’m going to step up to the plate, kick up some lime chalk and dig in, because it is high time to take a few swings at baseball, steroids and the Hall of Fame.

Before Jose Canseco, the original poster boy and lead prosecutor of the “steroid era,” broke out the gas can and blow torch, the only real legitimate Hall of Fame debate surrounded the notoriously disgraced hustler, Pete Rose. It is no secret that baseball writers and Hall of Fame voters are a snooty bunch. Never has there been a first-ballot unanimous selection; not Babe Ruth, not Hank Aaron, not Willie Mays, not Mickey Mantle. By the standards applied, and given the subjective nature of the vote, Pete Rose has zero chance. He committed the cardinal sin. He bet on baseball. He placed wagers on games, sometimes from the dugout, as a player, as a manager and as a player/manager (whatever happened to those?) The punishment was severe. He received a lifetime ban, preventing him from ever participating in anything baseball related, paid or unpaid. Over the years, enthusiasts and purists have argued fervently for and against Rose. Certainly without his unforgivable infraction, “Charlie Hustle” is easily a first ballot Hall of Famer. Everyone admired his fiery passion for the game. He might have even cracked that elusive 90% of the vote, a rare honor reserved only for the purest and most statistically astounding ballplayers.

This segues into my next point: Statistics. Since baseball is (or was) our national pastime, the majesty and history is upheld within its recordbooks and throughout the hallowed halls of Cooperstown, the Vatican of sports shrines. More so than basketball, football and hockey, baseball records are sacred. The average fan probably could not come within 10,000 points of guessing Michael Jordan’s career scoring total (he finished with 32,292 points). Quick, how many career touchdown passes did Joe Montana throw? (273) How many career goals did Wayne Gretzky score? (894) None of these numbers have been immortalized or are even connected to the player that was immortalized by his sport. Contrast that with Hank Aaron’s 755, Cy Young’s 511, Joe DiMaggio’s 56, Roger Maris’ 61, Cal Ripken’s 2,632. Baseball statistics have become more than just a virtuous reflection of the game and its most prolific players; they are a science, a complex mathematical discipline (Sabermetrics), a formula for revenue projections and wins and losses. For well over a century, Hall of Fame voters used bottom-line statistics as the primary means of evaluating the merits of induction. Generally, if a player crossed a magic milestone like 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, 300 wins or 3,000 strike-outs, he would have a path to Cooperstown. Occasionally, on-field accomplishments were balanced by any statistical anomalies of the era and whether a player was dominant on his own team and throughout his career. Sometimes, “compilers” (players who compile statistics over extended careers) would slip through and spark tepid debates amongst aficionados. (Bill Mazeroski, Bert Blyleven.)  But when Pete Rose was denied his induction for “compromising the integrity of the game,” Hall of Fame voters introduced an element of criteria that had not previously existed: morality.

This brings me back to Man-Ram. Much like Rose, Manny has no shot at the Hall of Fame. The illegally obtained, strategically leaked New York Times list of 2003, included positive PED tests for several players like Ramirez, David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa. That would have been enough to indite him as a “cheater” but throw in two failed drug tests in this highly-sensitive environment and Manny’s name is mud. (And as we all know, there’s no joy in Mudville.) But anybody watching the games over the last 20 years knows that Manny Ramirez is a easily, without question, a first-ballot Hall of Famer. As is Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mike Piazza and Pudge Rodriguez. Since Manny’s retirement on April 10th, sportswriters and TV pundits have weighed in on the Manny Ramirez/Hall of Fame debate. Unanimously, the opinion from the “professional expert” is that he is not a Hall of Fame player. On two separate occasions, the point has been raised that his chances may have improved had he not “quit on his teams.” This moral grandstanding has gone too far. Even if he did dog it for the Red Sox prior to his trade to the Dodgers, even if he did let down the Dodgers organization and the fans with a 50-game suspension, even if he did leave Evan Longoria unprotected in the middle of the Rays line-up having prematurely retired, Manny’s career speaks for itself. He is a two-time World Series Champion, a World Series MVP and arguably, the most important player in Boston Red Sox history, the player that changed the trajectory of the franchise and was an integral part of “reversing the curse.”

By and large, and throughout his career, he was beloved by teammates and fans alike. His impact on the game was enormously positive. (The Dodgers continued to promote “MANNYWOOD” while he was suspended.) This lackadaisical clown was a meticulous hitter, a ferocious slugger with a surgeons eye and extraordinary plate discipline. He finished his career with 555 home runs, a .312 life-time batting average, over 2,500 hits, over .400 OBP and over 1800 RBIs.

Now, here is the broader debate: Steroids. I have always argued that baseball is the most difficult sport to play. Hitting and pitching on a major league level requires such extraordinary skill and hand-eye coordination. Superlative athleticism is not even a prerequisite and having it only helps so much. Each pitch is a chess match, a psychological battle between the man on the mound and the batter at the dish. The difference between a great pitch and a pitch that gets clobbered exists within the tiniest of margins. The time in which it takes to pick up the spin on a cutter or slider or fastball moving at 92mph+, predict where the ball will be when you swing, connect the barrel of the bat squarely onto that hissing white blur, occurs at virtual light-speed and requires almost super-human vision and timing. Baseball is full of such intricacies. Historians love to wax on about the olden days when ballplayers were so underpaid they needed second jobs in the off-season. (Hank Aaron strengthened his forearms delivering large blocks of ice from an ice truck.) Or how Babe Ruth bulked up with his pregame ritual of hot dogs and beer. This is to say that, until the late 80’s, players did not artificially enhance their ability to play the game. Fair, but it is also common knowledge that many players (new and old) have always taken the occasional illegal amphetamine with their coffee, in order to keep up the with rigors of a long season. Where do we draw the line? Steroids clearly has an affect on a players ability. And from what we have learned and seen, it affects far more than just strength, power, quickness, and the ability to rapidly recover from an injury. Depending on the type of PED, the frequency of usage and the dosage, it can improve everything from timing and vision to psychological confidence. Any player that used any type of performance enhancing drug, was gaining an artificial advantage, and perhaps “compromising the integrity of the sport.” But that’s the problem. We are just now coming out of a two-decade era when steroid usage was rampant throughout the sport. How do we possibly quantify who was doing what? For every Jason Giambi and Jose Canseco, there was a Jeremy Giambi and Ozzie Canseco. For every Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, there was a Marvin Bernard and Ron Villone. Convicted steroid user Manny Ramirez absolutely owned admitted steroid user Andy Pettitte, so who had the artificial advantage in that match-up? How do we measure how many home runs all-time home run leader Barry Bonds hit off pitchers that were “juicing” in a similar fashion. No way to know. The official/unofficial steroids list of Major League Baseball includes 129 players who have either been implicated or have failed at least one drug test. (47 made the 2007 Mitchell Report, 27 have been suspended, 39 have been implicated by trainers or other evidence and 16 have confessed.) Of that list, only a small percentage of the names were superstars or even perennial All-Stars. The vast majority of the names barely kept afloat in the big leagues. This tells me two things: First, that list is probably a fraction of the thousands of players that used PEDs at least once over two-decades. Second, if you were already a gifted, superstar-caliber baseball player, your ability to excel beyond the players of your era is relative to how many players were trying to gain the same artificial advantage. This we will never know. What we do know is that Major League Baseball, its owners, the MLBPA, its sponsors and advertisers and benefactors had no problem with the game as it ballooned in popularity in the late 90’s due to the incredible influx in offense, particularly home runs. And to further the point, I cannot recall a single baseball writer or Hall of Fame voter loudly and forcefully sounding the bugle, blowing the proverbial whistle when players suddenly looked like The Incredible Hulk and their bats were the second coming of Roy Hobbs’ lightening stick. We all buried our head in the sand and enjoyed the show.

But now it is reckoning day. The most prolific players of this important era are retiring. How do we recognize them? How do we appropriately usher them into their proper place, even if they are convicted or suspected of “cheating?” Can anyone legitimately claim that Manny Ramirez was a below-average player without steroids? Consider this: Within six years both Ken Griffey, Jr. and Jim Thome will be eligible for a Hall of Fame ballot. Both players will finish with over 600 career home runs. Neither player is on that “129″ list nor have they been implicated or connected with steroid usage. But how do we know for sure? The method of identifying PED culprits is arbitrary, subjective, regional and wholly unscientific. (Roger Clemens never failed a drug test.) It is reprehensible that the baseball Hall of Fame has become the pearly gates of morality. Tyrus Raymond Cobb was a devoted, unapologetic racist, who sharpened his cleats and speared opposing infielders when he slid. He also was arrested for choking his wife and beating his son. He was arguably the best player of the “dead ball era,” which lasted over 20 years. In 1909, he led all of baseball with 9 home runs and never hit more than 12 in a season. But Ty Cobb was a Hall of Famer and is a Hall of Famer and has his own commemorative section at Cooperstown.

So please, either close the doors to everyone who played the game between 1988 and 2008, acknowledge the hypocrisy of Cobb and Rose, Byleven and Bonds, put an astrix* on the entire 20 year period or just go back to the business of evaluating players, statistics and the anomalies of the era… Because for Godsake, Manny Ramirez is a Hall of Famer.

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