The Manny Show

Not since Bob Fosse died has Hollywood seen such sophisticated choreography.

Major League Baseball announced Thursday morning that Los Angeles Dodgers star Manny Ramirez would be suspended for fifty games for failing a test for performance-enhancing drugs.

Manny Ramirez was ready with a statement. "Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility," the Dodgers star said.

The Dodgers were ready with a statement. "We support the policies of Major League Baseball, and we will welcome Manny back upon his return," the team said.

There will be no appeal, there will be no further investigation, there will be no refunds.

If not for Jose Canseco, we might never have known that everybody knew in advance this was going to happen.

About a month ago, the former Oakland A's and Texas Rangers slugger gave a speech to a half-empty auditorium at the University of Southern California, and Los Angeles Times reporter Kurt Streeter was there to report on it.

Canseco said he thought there was something fishy about Manny Ramirez. He wondered why, during the off-season, it had taken so long to sign one of baseball's premier hitters, and why he was signed to a brief two-year contract. He conjectured that baseball's team owners knew, or suspected, that Ramirez was using performance-enhancing drugs.

Canseco said he thought there was a 90 percent chance that Manny Ramirez's name was on the list of 104 players -- still anonymous -- that failed a drug test in 2003.

Kurt Streeter asked Ramirez for his reaction to Canseco's comments.

"He sat in front of his locker and gave me a deer-in-the-headlights gaze, a sly laugh, and a calm evasion," Streeter wrote on Thursday. "'I got no comment,' he said. 'Nothing to say about that. What can I say? I don't even know the guy.'"

That's not exactly a flat denial, but the reporter didn't press him.

"I wanted to believe," he wrote on Thursday, "We all do."

It's nice to believe, but it's better to know. After the Dodgers signed Manny Ramirez, they inexplicably passed up the chance to trade Juan Pierre. ESPN's fantasy baseball update on May 1 noted that "Juan Pierre may still have plenty of speed, but he's just not going to get to use it as long as he remains in the crowded Dodgers outfield. April marked his fourth consecutive month of fewer than 40 at-bats (20) and no more than two steals (he had one)."

Juan Pierre now takes over for Manny Ramirez in the outfield.

Coincidence? Or did Frank and Jamie McCourt know perfectly well what they were buying?

The Dodgers owners certainly got what they paid for: a surge in season ticket sales, a boost to merchandise sales, a hook for marketing, and a great start on the season.

And in July, when Ramirez is eligible to return to the line-up, the well-rehearsed story about an inadvertant use of a banned substance will let everybody pretend that nothing ever happened.

Let's face it, the owners don't care if Manny Ramirez used steroids.

And neither do the fans.

This is L.A. If drug use were an impediment to employment, even the governor would be out of work.

Baseball's tough new drug policy is nothing but a theatrical production for the benefit of the U.S. Congress, which threatened Major League Baseball with the loss of its anti-trust exemption if the sport failed to crack down on steroid use. (See "Barry Bonds' Big Asterisk")

The anti-trust exemption gives team owners a reprieve from the threat of federal prosecution for the normal business practices inherent in running a sports league. (See "Tackling the NFL.")

U.S. anti-trust laws were described by Ayn Rand in 1962 as "a haphazard accumulation of non-objective laws so vague, complex, contradictory and inconsistent that any business practice can now be construed as illegal, and by complying with one law a businessman opens himself to prosecution under several others."

You might remember that the anti-trust laws were used to charge Microsoft with the crime of giving its customers a free Internet browser.

Baseball team owners would rather spend their money on players than on lawyers, so they treasure that anti-trust exemption like the Hope Diamond.

If Congress wants a very strict steroid-testing program, that's what we're going to have.

"I know everybody is disappointed," Manny Ramirez said in a written statement.

"We share the disappointment," said Dodgers CEO Jamie McCourt.

"The toughest thing for Manny is how he disappointed everybody," said Joe Torre.

Bob Fosse would have won a Tony for this.


Copyright 2009

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "Jose Canseco's interesting threat," "The big leagues of lying," and "Alex Rodriguez and the big hurry."


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