Manny Ramirez will be back in action Friday night following his 50-game suspension.
This is probably an unpopular stance to take, but I’m not entirely comfortable with the celebratory aspect of his return. I don’t know that he should be vilified — it’s not like Ramirez is the only player ever to test positive. At the same time, “everyone else is doing it” is no justification.
It’s great for the Dodgers and the game that he’s returning. I understand that, and I have little doubt that fans receive a superior product for their money when he’s on the field. I’m just not sure that celebration is the appropriate response here.
I don’t have kids, and goodness knows I abhor the tired “think of the children” meme, but how do parents who cheer his return explain their reasoning? I’m not being rhetorical; I honestly don’t know how you reconcile these two things:
welcoming back a person who was caught cheating
imparting to your children values that are beneficial to society
Maybe I’m just getting old and cranky. It wouldn’t be the first time.
I think this whole ordeal has revealed how most fans truly feel about PEDs. Bonds and Arod were widely disliked even before they were caught cheating. Manny is likable and hugely popular. It looks like PEDs are not the real issue, but rather who is using them.
Where are you getting this impression that Manny is beloved?
He's not regarded as one of the game's greatest villains or anything(though perhaps he should be), but he's certainly not beloved everywhere. Hated in Boston. Hated in New York (regards of having been in Boston). Hated in San Fran (He's a Dodger). Hated in Cleveland (took the cash and ran). The guy has burned lots of bridges and is reviled in a number of the biggest baseball markets. Manny is neither likable nor hugely popular outside of LA. He's a lot closer to hated. His antics are sometimes amusing, but in the way you laugh at what Terrell Owens does... but you wouldnt describe him as likable or hugely popular.
Uhh... the reaction to Bonds varied based on whether it was a home or an away game. Let's see how fans react to Manny in away games before we get to the binary thinking of popular/unpopular when it comes to PED reactions.
Yet his series back was in San Diego. I know it is Dodger Stadium 2 since Padre fans dont show up. Still, he is on the road and nothing of substance yet.
He's on my fantasy team. I'm going to be cheering him...unless he doesn't get a hit. I do think you are misinterpreting the circus atmosphere in the media upon Manny's return as all positive. Most of the hype is similar to people standing around an accident...they just want to be near an event.
But if you are honestly having questions about why people could cheer him, I think you need to re-examine the facts of the case. MLB has rules about what you can and cannot put in your body as a player. Manny was determined to have put something in his body, after an agreed upon legal process. Manny was punished. The punishment is over. A wonderful example for children about the consequences of doing something against the rules, especially the ending part of the punishment.
If you wish to withhold your cheers, your money, etc. from Manny, the Dodgers, MLB, etc. because you are unhappy with what happened, that's your right. But don't be confused about a mythical values high road because it doesn't exist in this case. Unless you don't want to teach your children that people who break the rules get punished. And more importantly, after punishment, people deserve a second chance.
"A wonderful example for children about the consequences of doing something against the rules, especially the ending part of the punishment... And more importantly, after punishment, people deserve a second chance."
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I agree that there are lessons to be learned here. I hope that parents who cheer for Ramirez can explain this to their children as well as you have to me.
Geoff had the first blog I ever followed: www.ducksnorts.com. That made the game much more meaningful to me, to have an intelligent place to follow my team, away from trying to get a tiny glimpse on SportsCenter, and listen to often inferior analysis than what was on Geoff's blog. And he has been at it awhile, and had the likes of Sandy Alderson and Paul DePodesta support the blog.
Geoff likes to dig into the numbers a bit, but my observation of his writing is a bit more like Sheehan: more commentary of trends and emotions of the game rather than deep crunching. I am a kind of crunching guy, so get the appeal, but there is a place for both and appreciate Geoff's style.
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OK, but why is he posting blog entries and the Prospectus Idol contestants aren't? People hate this comment so much that it has been blocked, yet I have not written anything profane. I'm asking a serious question. Geoff Young has not yet written anything on this site worth paying to read. Readers can block this comment too, but I'd be happier if you would take the time to provide the link to anything that he has written that is more insightful than what I can get from a mainstream sports columnist. I don't pay BP for this stuff.
From my understanding, the site Geoff Young worked for was bought by PEV, the company that owns BP, so if they were established authors worthy of paying money for, there is less reason for them to establish credibility through a BP Idol type of contest. Thus, PEV felt Geoff's comments were worth paying for when they bought the company Geff had worked for.
Also, just because you might consider someone as "not as good" as the BP Idol contestans does not mean that they aren't good in general.
I'm sorry this line of conversation seems so offensive to people. But I just don't see what Geoff brings to this site. Normally that would be OK -- most media sites have a few writers who aren't particularly interesting. But it's striking on this site to see the amount of work that goes into the Prospectus Idol entries by unpaid people who are desperately trying to win a chance to write here, and then to see the amount of work that goes into Geoff's blog posts. The one above looks like it was tossed off in less than 10 minutes.
You have to teach your kids good values about taking care of one's health. That's the hard part, but at the very least set a good example and make it known why that is such a good idea. Support your claims with articles whenever possible. Despite my credibility, my family members still roll their eyes at me until they hear what I tell them from someone else or I show it to them published elsewhere.
Then you can use professional athletes as a talking point and explain the risk/reward for these athletes is very different from the rest of us. You might add, despite the success some of these PED taking athletes have enjoyed, they still probably aren't happy because either fans hate them for cheating and/or deep down they feel less about themselves for having done so.
This seems like a sensible approach. If the issue can serve as a springboard for discussion that somehow connects to and positively influences the lives of family members, then maybe good will come of it.
Like I said, I don't have kids, so this is a perspective that eludes me. But it did make me wonder. Thanks for the thoughts.
We like Manny. He did something bad, so he had to go away for a while. Now he's back, and we're happy to have him back. We hope he'll be good now so he can stay.
People who cheer for Manny:
-Dodger fans, glad to have their guy back
-Fans who like Manny, feel like he went through the proper process, punishment done
-Fans who think the drug testing is working, that, if busted, should be welcome back because the punishment is enough
People who boo (tacky) or withhold applause:
-Fans who fear that PED's are still a big issue, and players getting caught is the canary in the coal mine; still going on; so, yes, there is punishment, but this system is still not fixed
-Fans who like the moral high road; you're busted, your a louse, deserve to be booed
-Do you cheer a stock broker who returns after doing some community service/light time after getting busted for insider-trading? Yes, did some punishment, but still a crappy thing to do that does reveal something about their character. Don't necessarily ostracize them or run out of town, but cheer? No.
I am in the latter camp. I would not boo but definitely not cheer, but this feels more a like sad chapter in baseball not a happy one. I hope we get enough testing that we stop the PED use. Maybe we are already there, but I am uneasy about it.
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I don't know why you expect higher standards out of Dodger fans. L.A. is a hellhole of amoral self-importance to begin with, and their sports fans know nothing about being sports fans.
I didn't watch it as I was picked up at 8am CT to head out to play some golf, but this morning's Outside the Lines on ESPN apparently was dealing with this very topic -- it looked like it was talking to a couple of dads and sons about it, including about the dad talking to his kid about it, and also interviewing the kid about it. Probably would have been interesting for you.
I have children (well, a child), and I've long been arguing that we shouldn't hold anything against players who didn't get caught.
Just as I don't think we should penalise Manny any more than the penalty laid out in the rules. He served his 50 days. He's done; let him play.
Why people insist on adding some moral or ethical angle to this I have no idea. These guys are making reasonably informed decisions to improve their performance. They get hansomely rewarded for that performance. Do we not want them to excel?
And if we want to place some restrictions on what's acceptable means to improve that performance, shouldn't those restrictions be non-arbitrary?
The "think of the children" question, as I see it, is this:
Can we adequately explain to our children why the rules are as they are?
I am not sure about the other people's "moralizing" but mine is built on the following assumptions:
-That the banned PED's are bad for players. There may be OK levels but easy to go up to "un-OK" levels, so enforcing the difference between the two is impossibleor extremely difficult, so we have to ban it altogether.
-That the PED's are indeed performance enhancing.
If those two things are true, the players are hurting the other players when they choose to use. Players already face the don't use, fall behind vs. use and get ahead/stay even choice, and that choice, for non-users, gets harder the more other players use. So, that has a negative, external effect on other players, and that it is unfair to the other players. So, to me, it is not a neutral thing.
I get that it is a very difficult choice, and that many of the observors who decry the moral damage would themselves make the same choice given the perceived incentives. But that just argues for more stringent testing. I have some sympathy for players facing the incentives and not sure what I would do if facing the same choices. But even if I would do the wrong thing, that still does not make it right.
I am not sure about the arbitrary nature of what drugs are on the PED list. If there are PED's on the list that are actually not harmful and ones that are harmful but not on the list, that does seem arbitrary, but still not justification for using one on the list.
The assumption that PED's actually enhance performance is a big part of the problem in the first place, and unfortunately probably can't be verified.
Wouldn't it be something though if MLB decided after 2011 that instead of NL and AL, they would have PED-allowed-league and no-PED-league. Then you might have a large enough data set to test whether PEDs are actually performance enhancing, and the impact of PEDs on whether it puts more fans in the seats.
Thanks much, everyone, for the comments. I found those that attempted to engage the topic at hand especially useful, although I learned something from all of them.
On a more general note, I am always open to article suggestions. If you've got some constructive input, feel free to drop me a line at geoff@ducksnorts.com so we can discuss your ideas further. Thanks again for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.
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Minor suggestion... you might want to suggest a more professional-sounding email address than "ducksnorts"... if I hadn't gone to the site itself and seen you had created it (and published off it), my kneejerk reaction was that either your comment was sarcastic, or I would've been dismissive of your professionalism the same as if I saw a job application with an email address of 2hot4U@hotmail.com.
No I don't have an opinion on everything.. but it seems people question Geoff's credibility and think he should've gone through the BP Idol process or something instead. People who are unfamiliar with Geoff and ducksnorts (which I am), won't realize he's been doing this for awhile if they didn't take the time to go to his webpage (which I only recently did). Even in the Idol competition, you have people who have posted articles before and came into the competition with a fan base, and those who were unknowns. I was just trying to make a minor suggestion that people might think ducksnorts is some kind of gag site and not a serious baseball site.
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I think this whole ordeal has revealed how most fans truly feel about PEDs. Bonds and Arod were widely disliked even before they were caught cheating. Manny is likable and hugely popular. It looks like PEDs are not the real issue, but rather who is using them.
If you want to like someone, you find more reasons to like them and gloss over the bad... and if you don't, you'll find more reasons to dislike them.
Where are you getting this impression that Manny is beloved?
He's not regarded as one of the game's greatest villains or anything(though perhaps he should be), but he's certainly not beloved everywhere. Hated in Boston. Hated in New York (regards of having been in Boston). Hated in San Fran (He's a Dodger). Hated in Cleveland (took the cash and ran). The guy has burned lots of bridges and is reviled in a number of the biggest baseball markets. Manny is neither likable nor hugely popular outside of LA. He's a lot closer to hated. His antics are sometimes amusing, but in the way you laugh at what Terrell Owens does... but you wouldnt describe him as likable or hugely popular.