Vote for Manny
Suspended Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez is fourth among outfielders in the early results of the All-Star Game voting released this week. The top three outfielders when the online and ballpark voting closes in July will start for the National League in the Mid-Summer Classic to held in St. Louis July 14th.I'm encouraging everyone to vote for Manny this year to send a message to baseball that we've had it with ballplayers being scapegoated for simply trying to help their teams win and for trying to heal their battered bodies with medically- and legally-prescribed drugs after getting hurt on the field of play. Let's send a message that it's preposterous to penalize Ramirez for such a "crime" after he single-handedly revived baseball in a town where all the celebrities are performance-enhanced, including the state's governor. Commissioner Bud Selig has been the man at the forefront of baseball's collective failure to rid the game of steroids, and he'll be at the game.
In 2006, NFL linebacker Shawne Merriman was voted to the Pro Bowl even though he had served a four-game suspension during the season for steroid use. Nobody batted an eye. That's because that sport has perspective and they don't eat their own in an effort to settle age-old labor disputes. The fact that Ramirez is in the top four already, with nearly all of the voting having taken place since the suspension, proves already that baseball fans care as little about steroid use as football fans.
The league office confirmed this week that Manny would be eligible to play if selected by the fans so check out voteformanny.blogspot.com and cast your official vote(s) today on the link provided. If you were planning to vote for all Cardinals in an effort to fill the National League roster with Redbirds during the year that they're hosting the game, give Manny your Chris Duncan spot.
But vote! Show Major League Baseball you don't care about steroids. Show Commissioner Selig you're smart enough to understand that it's excellence of reflex, spatial processing, and vision-- not muscle mass-- that makes for a great baseball slugger, and that you don't believe in "miracle" performance drugs. Show him you're tired of his underlings' attempts to embarrass ballplayers with their cowardly and shameful press leaks, and that you're tired of the needless suspensions.
Or, if you prefer a more traditional angle, simply show him you want to see baseball's best players playing in the All-Star Game.
posted by CM @ 5:55 PM
4 Comments:
Chris - this is one time I can't agree with you. Ok, so I almost never agree with you, but I usually understand your point of view. This time though, you are just plain wrong.
After Merriman was elected to the Pro Bowl in 2006, the league instituted a new rule that players suspended for drug use were not allowed to play in the Pro Bowl.
Baseball's drug policy may not be perfect and it is definitely 30 years too late, but at least it is there now and I do believe it is working.
I could get into a big debate about how I feel about the stats and records of the recent past and some of the players still in the game that have been caught or admitted using steroids, but I'll save that one for another time. For now, I will just say that cheaters like Manny don't deserve our praise or adoration - though in time maybe they can earn our forgiveness. We should send a message to the players (not Bud Selig) that if you are caught cheating, that no longer makes you one of "baseball's best players" and you don't get to be at the All Star game.
I wish it was as simple as that, Dave, but it can't be. The new drug policy isn't "working" just because players are getting caught. The fact is there's no way to test for HGH, so anybody could be taking it, and other substances will only be altered and harder to police. It's just going to further devolve into a game of 'gotcha'.
The sad truth is as medicine progresses in the coming decades these issues are only going to get progressively more complicated and we're going to hear about this forever.
Science has changed sports forever so have fun staying a "purist" sports fan, but I'm not going to waste my time. If you want to stay a baseball fan, I have a feeling you'll have to find an alternate (and more abstract) way to get your head around the subject.
If they can develop a drug that alters the body or its chemistry (HGH), then they can develop a test to detect that change. And I understand that when they do, there will be a new drug available that can't be tested for people to use. But, it is becoming 1) more difficult to obtain these performance enhancing substances than it was in the past, and 2) a bigger risk to take anything, even if it can't be detected, because unless you are manufacturing the stuff in your basement, there is someone that got it for you and you take the risk that they will talk at some point.
There will always be cheaters, but having this policy in place and taking the stand that this is no longer acceptable makes this an active right/wrong decision for the player rather than an "everyone else is doing it" type of mentality. I will bet that this has stopped 90% of the "cheating" that was occurring when it wasn't considered cheating.
I still think it's going to be more complicated than that. HGH is often prescribed by doctors, and why not? It's helps the healing process and has essentially no negative side effects.
It will probably sound like I'm spinning this argument into the world of crazy fantasy and make-believe, but we're on our way to having anti-aging medicine and technology, and to think this won't continue to affect sports and our entire way of looking at it is unrealistic.
What you're saying, Dave, makes perfect sense, but I think we've just tipped the iceberg of what these enhancement drugs will inevitably change about sports and I think we have to change how we look at them.
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