Oh, Manny, Manny, Manny!
There’s only one big story in sports today, and it is far from a pretty one. Hitting savant Manny Ramirez joins the frustratingly long list of high profile drug cheats in major league baseball, and becomes the first of them to get caught red-handed and face immediate and concrete punishment.
For several reasons this story hurts both my head and my soul. I’m become accustomed to seeing the icons of the sport, ones I like and respect, fall from grace. Despite that, I’m not yet cynical or jaded enough to accept or expect every player to be doing something illegal. Because of that, I was honestly and truly shocked to hear the news this morning when it broke. I would have put Ramirez well down the list of players who could be using something.
It’s quite possible that we will never know for sure what the actual truth is about Ramirez and what he took. The sad fact, though, is that it doesn’t matter. It could be that he tested positive for a drug used after a round of steroids, or it could be as reasonably innocent as Ramirez tries to say it is. Either way, Ramirez should have known better, and no explanation can excuse it. This unavoidably and permanently taints the legacy of the best pure hitter I have ever seen. That’s a real shame.
From a betting perspective this creates a very complicated situation. On one hand you could be an optimist and say that the team could be better than people think, creating value for astute bettors. After all, Juan Pierre is a solid replacement, the team has good bats, and it is very well coached. On the other hand, Ramirez is harder to replace than perhaps any other player in the league, and his impact is far beyond the numbers he puts up. He terrifies opposing pitchers, and as a result he has a direct and positive impact on the batters who hit around him in the lineup. Pierre doesn’t have the same impact. Add to that the confusion and loss of confidence that the team could suffer as a result of this situation, the endless and insistent distractions from the media for the next two months, and the hostile reactions from fans at home and especially on the road, and it seems more than likely that the team will be impacted significantly by this situation. Until we see the team play for a while in these new circumstances I won’t be confident at all with any guess I might make about this team and their immediate future. I don’t know about you, but I won’t be touching this team now or for the next while.
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Tags: Los Angeles Dodgers, Manny Ramirez
