Think Blue: Dodgers

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― This was suppossed to be a day off.  As soon as I saw the morning news shows after dropping the kids off, I knew it would be a long day. 

I also knew from Manny Ramirez's initial statement, about a 'personal medical problem,' that we weren't going to get the information on what substance it was that was going to get him suspended for 50-games, from him. 

I wondered what could possibly be so private and personal in a sport where Viagra is a major sponser, and its former spokesman was another player suspended for steroid use, Rafael Palmiero. 

Or in a sport where Manny's own manager, Joe Torre has been amongst countless high profile members of the baseball fraternity, discussing their experience with, and the need to be tested for prostate cancer. 

My biggest problem with Manny's 'statement" is not only that he didn't write it himself, but that he didn't make a public appearance to voice it. 

It also glaringly ommitted not only the substance, but the doctor's name who supposedly told him it was alright to injest in relation to MLB's list of banned substances. 

It took until 4:30pm for Joe Torre and Ned Coletti to face a throng of cameras and microphones, and you could see  the weight and seriousness of this latest tarnished hero in the steroid era linked to Joe, all over his face. 

His first news conference this spring at the new facility in Glendale, Arizona came within a day of the Alex Rodriguez positive test news, which consumed about 90% of the questioning that day. 

So Torre's been through it with Jason Giambi, Andy Pettite, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, and now Manny, just to name the highest profile players he's managed. 

Torre said today, he hopes he's always surprised when he gets news like this, that he'd hate to get to the point where it was just commonplace, but most of us are well past that. 

The Padres Jake Peavy today applauded the testing program and suspension, in the name of a level playing field for those who don't choose the performance enhancing route. 

Those players needed to be a lot more vocal, a lot longer ago.  At this point, anyone with exceptional numbers over the past decade is automatically suspected, and the odds are more likely he did than he didn't. 

As Manny himself professed, 'I've past about 15 tests the past five years."  Yeah, who hasn't? 

Most of the on the record reaction I got from both Dodgers and Nationals players today, including former teammate Joe Beimel, were of sadness and disbelief. 

I was in the visting clubhouse when Washington's Willie Harris arrived, and he was the only person I saw all day, who somehow hadn't heard. 

He naturally thought his teammates were kidding, but once he was convinced it was true, was saddened that he won't be able to see one of his favorite players perform for the next 50-games. 

Those who wouldn't comment on camera, or on the record, expressed disbelief that a player, especially of Ramirez's stature, and salary, could get caught. 

Here's how;  a toxic combination of arragance, and ignorance. 

Manny waited all winter to get a 100-million dollar contract that never came, and eventually settled on the one year equivalent. 

Now nearly a 3rd of that $25 million dollar salary will be credited to the Dodgers' financial ledger.  That will help offset lost sales from the 99-dollar "Mannywood" ticket section and t-shirt deal, and lost revenue from braided wigs, and just a general slow down in attendance without their billboarded face of the franchise as an attraction until the 4th of July weekend. 

Even at that, Ramirez's return will come on an early July road trip.  He'll miss both the L.A. and Anaheim versions of the freeway series, and most of the NLCS rematches with the Phillies.

And speaking of those loyal followers sitting in 'Mannywood,' or anywhere around the park wearing #99 jerseys, or dreadlocks, I'm going to venture that less than one percent of them will earn the 7.7 million dollars their hero will give up over the next 50-games, in their LIFETIME! 

So less than two months from now, we get to hear Manny's "I'm baaaack...," which was turned into a marketing campaign. 

Eventually, if not immedietly, he'll be welcomed back, and barring a significant injury to the likes of Broxton, Billingsley, or Furcal, the Dodgers will still easily win the west, and Manny will have the chance to make us all forget about it, and play the hero again in the postseason. 

Maybe even bring L.A. a ring.  For a guy like me who's been so hard on San Francisco for it's blind support of Barry Bonds, I can't endorse Manny. 

I like the guy, I enjoy being around him, almost as much as his teammates do.  But he cheated the game, that's a fact, and on a day when honoring the 1959 champs was overshadowed by this dark cloud,  my heart, and admiration belongs to those guys.  The "Moon Shot" of Wally Moon never looked so good, or seemed so pure.

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