Jayson Stark's new article about Manny Ramirez's suspension is up and can be found here. You should probably read it before continuing.
Every single part of that article is horseshit. Complete and utter horseshit. Starting with the first sentence, where Stark decides to start his article burying Manny with a grand statement about being proud to be an American and proud to be amongst such a forgiving populace, continuing to the last, where he says it'll take more than his (Manny's) hair and his bat to earn forgiveness. It's horseshit because it's built on a faulty premise and is thus fallacious; that Manny doesn't deserve to be forgiven because he didn't take on the full brunt of the blame in his apology. The people who have done this and have been forgiven (deservedly) apparently begins and ends with Pettitte. There's not another name listed, though Stark infers there are others. These people who have been forgiven were so absolved because they took their punishment like a man. It's a ridiculous idea that misses the point completely.
I don't want to step on the toes of upcoming posts we'll do about steroids, but I've never felt that juicing is enough to warrant a tarring-and-feathering. It's just not that simple. Even for a player like Rodriguez, whose use was/is more a statement of insecurity than anything else, and whom I don't even care for, the Steroids is an insignificant event; more interesting for the psychological implication it makes about him than the padded stats. So while I may think it's not a big deal regardless of the player, Stark clearly does. On his own terms, then: Manny was caught with a female fertility drug that raised the amount of testosterone in his body. Pettitte used Human Growth Hormone to heal his pitching arm. In simple black and white terms, Pettitte's was the greater baseball sin. It's not even close. Also worth noting is that Manny has passed at least a dozen tests for illegal substances in the last few years, and given the nature of steroids, its benefits and consequences on the body, combined with Manny's strengths as a player, it's pretty reasonable to say that there's no real reason to suspect he's had a history of juicing. Bill Simmons, of course, takes a maudlin approach when he contemplates the cataclysmic repercussions of Manny taking some pills, and though he's more realistic about what steroids mean in a general way, somehow Ramirez's failed test causes him to lose his shit. He's wrong, too, but his is a more personal disappointment and while he misses the point - Manny and Ortiz still were the Ruth and Gehrig of our time - his last sentence sort of gets it right. Everyone's cheating.
Baseball is a game of cheating, though. Stealing signs and steroids, whether to win a game or prolong a career, are all part of it. So when Simmons says "Everyone was cheating back then," he's half wrong. Everyone has always been cheating.
Back to Stark. There's a weird sort of fascist bent to whole article's chiding. Stark darkly intones that Manny's reputation before this suspension is enough cause to throw him overboard; whereas Pettitte's stellar history renders him easier to forgive. This is where I take the most umbrage. You see, whereas Stark seems to think Manny has no fans, that his behavior is sinister and his past unforgivable, I see it the other way. This play, for better or worse, sums up what I love about Manny. He's a ridiculous, child-like person; he leaves the field to pee in the middle of a game, wears sunglasses with earbuds in them during warm ups, he doesn't seem to be taking any of it seriously, ever. There are a thousand other examples of this, and anytime an expression is coined to explain a person (Manny being Manny), you can rest assured there's a pattern of behavior. But Manny's acts aren't childish; they, as I said just now, are child-like. And the joy Manny has for baseball is obvious. Witness his slump busting homerun against the A's a few years ago in the playoffs, where he stood back and admired his hit for far too long, and you won't see a player rubbing his excellence in his opponent's faces. You'll see a player watching the ball go over the wall, finding his swing again.
Manny is one of the top 2 or 3 right handed hitters in the history of baseball. He's a World Series MVP, he's clutch, and a dozen other positive adjectives that I can't list here. Moreso than that, though, he's wholly himself and authentic. He has style and verve and swagger and is one of the handful of players that I would steal money to use to watch him play. That is why he'll be forgiven. Not because we're his parents and we decide punishment, or our ideals of purity and sanctity have been compromised. That's stupid, and where Stark is fundamentally most wrong.
I'll wait for Manny to come back because Manny is a baseball player: One who plays a game. That he does so in accordance with his own head rather than some fictionalized utopia a sportswriter dreams of is all the better. I'd wish to everyone that they find the happiness and excellence in their own jobs or hobbies that Manny Ramirez has in baseball.
So, Jayson Stark, we here at Joy in Mudville posit that you (along with Plaschke and his typically completely ludicrous response, and a number of other ESPN talking heads), are completely and totally wrong about this. And if you think for a moment that baseball is more about Pettitte than it is about Manny - that we're watching the game for Andy's dour expressions or impassive mein - then you can take your ball and go home.
The rest of us will be happy to fill the stands.
