Much to the chagrin of Brett Favre, who reportedly won’t return to professional football, the sports story of the day on Thursday was, obviously, Manny Ramirez and the 50-game suspension he was given by Major League Baseball after a failed drug test.
Truth be told, I was a bit taken aback by this news, only because Manny never seemed like that kind of a guy. Sure, he was quirky and had his moments of brainlessness, but performance enhancers? No way.
In his defense, which came in the form of a written statement, Manny says he “saw a physician for a personal health issue."
"He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me," the statement reads. The former Red Sox slugger goes on to say he’s been tested, and passed, 15 times in the past five seasons.
I don’t believe Manny when he says he unknowingly took HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, the drug reportedly found in his system and is banned by Major League Baseball.
To compound the issue, it’s getting harder and harder to believe that any major leaguer is clean. Albert Pujols could very well hit 50 or 60 home runs this year, and the same could be said for Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, Carlos Pena or Carlos Quentin. But when and if they do, that cloud of suspicion will be lurking.
And what are we supposed to think of sluggers who now are having trouble at the plate? I doubt I’m alone in thinking David Ortiz, a good friend of Manny who has a grand total of zero homers through 29 games, has taken steroids in the past. The same can be said about Miguel Tejada.
Thursday was indeed a bad day for baseball.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment