There will not be a Chicago reunion tonight for Manny Ramirez, who played for the White Sox in the final two months of last season. He decided to retire after he reportedly tested positive for steroids.
Ramirez will face criticism for bailing out on the Rays and being busted for steroids.
That’s fair, but let’s not express sympathy for the Rays, either. They knew what they signed up for with Ramirez.
This signing did not make sense. For one thing, he tailed off last year when he did not produce for the Dodgers and the White Sox.
Second of all, he is 38 years old, so to expect him to give the team anything was short-sighted.
They were better off signing Vladimir Guerrero, who is playing well for the Orioles. They wouldn’t be in a mess on offense if he were there.
The Rays hoped he would be decent enough to get base hits, but he couldn’t even do that.
He finished his Rays career by going 1-for-17. Now, that’s ending a career with a whimper.
Something was up when Ramirez did not play yesterday afternoon. He took a personal day in the Rays’ 5-1 loss to the White Sox. That came after he was benched in Wednesday afternoon’s game against the Angels at Tropicana Field.
Maybe something should have been up when Joe Maddon benched his petulant player.
The thought was the Rays manager wanted to find someone that can provide a spark on offense, but it turned out he and the organization knew about what was going to happen with the troubled player, which is why he did not play.
The news shouldn’t affect the Rays. They won’t miss him. After all, he was doing nothing. If guys are affected about the news, shame on them. They should concentrate on how to snap out of their hitting slump.
Ramirez’s departure should help them, actually. This means the Rays don’t have to see Johnny Damon’s follies at the outfield. He would be the team’s everyday designated hitter, and that would mean Sam Fuld would play every day.
At least, Fuld would give them better offense than Ramirez would. He is one of only few hitters who is producing for the Rays.
It is a good thing this happened now, rather than later. Eventually, if Ramirez continued to be a bust, he would have been a pain in the rear end.
He would have started acting defiant, and he would not run out groundballs. He would be a bad influence on the team’s young players.
It turned out he became a problem child right out of the chute. He used steroids with the hope he would be productive.
If he was caught, he could walk away from the game, and that’s what he did. It says a lot about his character.
He could not care less what he did. He has always been himself, if one looks at his narcissistic act in Cleveland and Boston.
Just because he claimed he was a new man in his introductory Rays press conference, it didn’t mean he was going to live up to his word.
At one point, he was going to pull this act. The thought was he was going to do this in June. It turned out he did it early this year, and that wasn’t surprising.
This was not going to end well one way or another. If anyone thought it would be a fairy tale ending, that person was delusional.
Either he was going to force his departure or the team was going to release him in May after a poor performance.
His departure should be viewed as a matter of indifference. Let’s hope the national media doesn’t publicize this.
There are other athletes worth talking about than a guy who was an embarrassment to sports.
As for the Rays, they should be criticized for taking this risk. When no teams made a concerted effort to sign the guy, that should have been a sign that he was not worth it.
This move was all about the Rays front office trying to show they know more baseball than others.
Make no mistake. If Ramirez panned out, they would be the first to tell everyone how they knew he could do things.
Don’t rip on Ramirez for what he did. That’s par on the course for him.
Put the criticism where it really belongs, which is on Andrew Friedman for experimenting on Ramirez.
They reap what they sowed with this failed experiment.
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