Okay, now you can boo him.
And throw some dirt on the Rays season while you’re at it.
Manny Ramirez was one step ahead of the law Friday when he abruptly quit retired from baseball, which appeared ready to slap him with a second suspension. This slap was for 100 games, after he again violated the sport’s drug policy.
Manny, 38, bailed.
He shut it down faster than the federal government ever could.
Manny just contracted, so here we are.
So much for him being part of the marketing push for the new ballpark that was going to help keep the club in the area.
In the end, it was just Manny being dirty.
Again.
One thing’s for sure: He will not be wearing a Rays hat in Cooperstown.
Who am I kidding? Like there is a chance in hell he will find his way into the Hall of Fame without having first purchased a ticket.
The last time around, in Los Angeles, he was caught using a fertility drug.
Bet the Rays had twins when this news came down.
Scratch one cleanup hitter.
What a sordid episode.
What an embarrassment.
True, the optimist might say the Rays got the inevitable Manny headache out of the way early. Manny’s career here lasted about 119 minutes—okay, six games, really; five of which he played in, getting just one hit in 17 at-bats with his last plate appearance Wednesday afternoon.
Who will ever forget it? Manny’s last swing will go down as a pinch-hit fly out.
But it doesn’t help the perception, and maybe the reality, that this Rays season is already a goner. While Manny avoided suspension, the Rays will serve out the remaining 155 games of their 2011 sentence. They began the season 0-6 and the only question is who in this B-squad lineup is going to step up and not hit in Manny’s place. We haven’t even mentioned the grim prospect of Casey Kotchman bobblehead night.
But I digress.
Back to Manny being dirty.
As recently as two years ago, Ramirez would have been a no-brainer, with tape-measure Hall of Fame credentials.
Now he gets in a line that might never move, with Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens and the rest. Manny will always be the guy who got nailed cheating not once, not twice, but three times. (Remember that 2003 list that A-Rod and Big Sloppy were found on?)
That, my friends, is what thou calls a “tainted legacy.”
“Obviously, it’s not going to help,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said, according to Hot Trends News.
Manuel Aristides Ramirez smashed 555 home runs and drove in 1,831 runs, but he was hardly ever in a place where things didn’t end badly, though the speed of his departure here was truly stunning.
When Maddon sat Ramirez for most of Wednesday’s game at Tropicana Field, and announced Manny would also miss Thursday’s game in Chicago to attend to a “family matter,” there were some raised eyebrows. After all, Manny played the part of the happy camper all spring training. He sold himself to a lot of people. There were no troubling signs as the season began, unless you count 1-for-17.
Then all of this hits, seemingly out of nowhere (please note the sarcasm).
What a shocker!
I mean who on earth would have ever thought this guy would have been so stupid to use, and get caught using, again?
Well you can’t see me right now, but I kind of look like this image you see to the right.
Perhaps even more embarrassingly, the Rays got caught giving him another chance.
They said up front there was always a risk. Damn right there was.
It’s hard to tell what real impact this will have on this season. I mean, the Rays were clearly capable of not scoring runs with Manny.
They didn’t have much invested in him ($2 million) and there was always a chance he would have nothing left, something I thought while watching him last season. Maybe the Rays should have gone after Vladimir Guerrero after all.
But they didn’t.
They rolled the dice on this ass-clown fully knowing that he had a long, sordid history of screwing over entire organizations.
So once MLB released a statement stating that the league notified Ramirez of an issue with the drug policy, something he is very familiar with, he abruptly decided to quit instead of facing a 100-game suspension, since this would have been his second positive test.
Basically, he took his ball and went home. It’s not really surprising with how the tail-end of Manny’s career went.
Manny pretty much quit with the Red Sox when he showed his displeasure with his contract situation by not running out ground balls and possibly bringing his game down to intentionally not produce, until he was traded to the Dodgers.
That whole mess of a situation, along with his suspensions, clearly shows Manny had no respect for the game of baseball. His latest move of quitting six games into the season is a joke, but one where no one should be surprised.
In the end, the game of baseball is a lot better off without Manny Ramirez.
Good freakin’ riddance.
This article is also featured on The Rantings and Ravings Of A (Formerly) Mad Mailman.
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