Manny Being Manny

One more baseball note. If you follow sports you have heard that one of the games biggest distractions, highest paid players and best hitters (and worst fielders), tested positive for a banned substance. That's what MLB calls it. Looks like he has been taking steroids although he came up with the lame excuse that his doctor gave it to him and neither one of them had a clue it was illegal. So another superstar goes down. It's bad for baseball and another knife thrust into the baseball fans heart. I was surprised to hear Buster Olney, who used to be a sportswriter but now he's a talking head on ESPN, say that he would still vote for Ramirez to be in the hall of fame. What? He rationalized that in this drugged era no one knows who is cheating and who is not. So you have to treat it like it is what it is and still reward the best (cheaters) with the hall of fame. What? Olney did admit that Ramirez is no lock to make the hall of fame since there are a sizable block of voters that refuse to vote for steroid tainted players (Mark McGuire has not received over 25% of the necessary vote for three years now). Then, after Olney commented, ESPN went to their fantasy baseball "expert" for insight into how fantasy owners should handle the Ramirez problem. His take was to hold onto Manny because he is only suspended for 50 games and he will put up big numbers when he gets back. What? Looks like some people just accept it is what is and adjust accordingly. Now there are some good players that are not cheating ( I think). And the consensus among baseball commentators seems to be you can't penalize them and the whole game for a few cheaters. But it looks to me that there are more than a few and MLB doesn't want to work too hard to find out how many. Besides, baseball has more problems than drugs. Like most professional sports, baseball has become more about the sideshows than the game. So maybe it's time for the fan to boycott professional sports completely and give his or her baseball heart to those places and players where baseball is still played for the love of the game.