Bobblebombed

August 3, 2009

I wish I could be happy to see that Manny Ramirez is getting a second Bobblehead night, and a poster to commemorate the first one (one of the most exciting nights in recent regular-season Dodger Stadium history for sure).  But I can’t be happy.  Not when the Dodgers’ good standing is due not to a guy who took a 50-day vacation at the beginning of the year, but to a team coming together.  The “kids”, Jacksonville 5 and others, finally growing to fruition.  The supposedly shoddy pitching staff and bullpen becoming one of the best of baseball (due to other teams’ staffs being shoddier, I guess).  Juan Pierre stopped sulking about his place on the team and came up big when we needed him to.

But my feelings on Manny are complicated.  I described them best in a post I meant to put up at the beginning of last month, but didn’t, saving it to the computer instead.  But since I feel I need to explain why I would feel conflicted about speaking ill of Manny, I’ll post it now.  Then off to work for me, and maybe something posted later.

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It’s
been a long three months since I last posted. 
A whirlwind, actually, with the semester, commencement, and just the
usual stuff life throws at you from day to day (and quite a bit of unusual
stuff as well).  But, if one thing is
certain, it’s that I have a funny way of keeping a blog going, which is strung
with long periods of inactivity. 

 

So
what’s new?  Well, the Dodgers aren’t
playing like bums, and it’s weird to consistently see them on top of the
standings of not only the division, or the league, but all of baseball.  Being 7 years old the last time the Dodgers
won the World Series, this is definitely a welcome change of pace.  It’s not one person doing well, it’s the team
running on all cylinders, with slumps few and far between. 

 

Being
somewhat used to failure (if not expectant), I don’t know how to handle
this.  It’s good to be on top, and yet I
remember the 100-win ’04 Cardinals, and of course the 100-win ’88 A’s, knowing
that the regular season is just a prelude, and it seems the best teams during
the year burn themselves out by October, while the winning teams are the ones
that are playing to get into October at the end of September.  Plus, our pitching situation isn’t looking
really good at the moment, but then again, whose does?  Gotta give props to the Giants’ staff, but
their offense is terrible, reminding me of the ’05 Dodgers, one of the best
pitching staffs in history, but an anemic offense couldn’t get them to October.

 

Oh
yeah, and that other thing happened.  It
was devastating to me, because he had been one of my favorite outfielders this
decade.  I loved his attitude (well,
except for the sulky, Clubhouse-attendant-pushing antics last summer), the way
he was like water, and everything that came his way, criticism, jeers from fans
of other teams, anything.  He took to the
field in MP3 sunglasses, disappeared into the Green Monster between innings,
high-fived fans in the middle of game-busting plays, and was charismatic.  I knew if he had ever made it to L.A., the
fans would eat him up like 3-for-$2.70 Taco Nite at Del Taco.  The dude was so Hollywood, he’d be the
biggest thing to happen to L.A. since Shaq.

 

Well,
we know what happened, so not much for me to say except I support him as
wholeheartedly and knowingly as Yankees fans accept A-Rod, Phillies fans accept
J.C. Romero, Giants fans accepted Bonds, and whatever else.  Except for Romero, the thing Manny has on
most players connected with PED’s is that he has actually been punished for it
by baseball (and his body will be punished for it over time, if he used certain
PED’s).  And he still wears the jersey of
my team, so I’ll support him, just as I’m sure that any fan would support an
iconic player of their team once they’ve had 50 days to run the gamut of
emotions associated with that betrayal, a betrayal of the fans, of the sport,
and of the athlete themselves. 

 

Not
accusing anyone, but imagine what would happen if a player as iconic to their
team as Derek Jeter or Albert Pujols was connected to PED’s… wow.  It’d be tough to deal with.  It would be easier for a fan to leave the
game than to deal with it, and consider taking the player back (if the owner
gives them that option).  You’d look over
the course of that players’ tenure, and wonder how you should look at it
now.  For Red Sox fans, perhaps this is a
reality, since they’ve won their two recent “curse”-busting championships with
the slugger as a major part of it.  Sure,
he wasn’t caught then, but if the sport went out of their way to not test a
perceived jerk like Bonds, they weren’t going to touch the enigmatic star of
one of Baseball’s beloved franchises.

 

For
Dodgers fans, we look back at the Game Over era of Eric Gagne, and the
once-proclaimed “heart and soul” of the team, Paul Lo Duca, who we now know was
a PED ringleader since his AAA days.  You
look at the names in the Mitchell Report, you realize there’s a list of 104
names of players who did test positive (not just the top 10 power sluggers in
baseball), and see that it’s not a case of a few bullies picking on the game,
but a culture of cheating that threatens the pastoral sanctity people associate
with the National Pastime.

 

For
me, I’ll take this season with a grain of salt. 
It was a little easier dealing with this when we couldn’t be bothered
with considering why Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa looked like they could
double-team Superman and the Incredible Hulk… and win.  They said they were just lifting weights, but
I had been lifting weights for 5 years at that point, and I didn’t look
anything like that.  I’m sure it was
easier for Oakland to remember 1988-1990, before Canseco became the
Bulked-Up-Bouton of our era, and not think about where all that Bash-ing came
from.  It was easier to look back at the
1960’s era of the Pitcher, and not think about whether the baseballs were
scuffed or how many players were on greenies. 
And I’m sure it was easier for kids to love the Babe without wondering
how he could run in straight lines after hitting up Happy Hour before many a
gameday.  You look at the past, and with
all that tobacco they were chewing, and wonder what pills and supplements they
might’ve been hiding in there for that extra edge.

 

Baseball’s
survived worse, and will see better days once again (just ask Terrance
Mann).  For the time being, I’ll still be
watching, cheering and booing.  And if I
was at a game, I wouldn’t boo him, I’ve spent 50 days booing his decision in my
heart.  A decision I’m beyond certain
that he regrets.  He’s been punished, he
wants to move on, and I can feel that, since I wouldn’t want cameras and mics
in my face every time I screw up in life. 
Do I like having the advantage last year that the PED use gave us?  Well, I don’t like knowing about it.  Knowledge is sorrow, Ignorance is bliss.  Because once I know, I can’t condone it, and
last year became too good to be true. 

 

Perhaps
this year will be different, if we made it. 
A team with a known ex (I hope) user against teams that perhaps have
unknown users, players who feel invincible and above the rules. 

 

Perhaps
this year will be different, because we have a recognizance of the problem now
before us.  A recognizance that this
isn’t an epidemic exclusive to one team or player, but one that is rampant within
the sport (unless EVERYBODY stopped.  You
can laugh, it’s funny). 

 

 

Written by northstateblues Posted in Dailies Tagged with dodgers, manny ramirez, ped