Prevailing sentiment surrounding Manny Ramirez and his 50 game sentence for use of the banned substance hCG is that the spacey outfielder is either crooked or stupid. Sports On My Mind’s D.K. Wilson offers a previously unheard theory ; this really about Manny Being A Daddy.
Manny is married to a very beautiful, woman named Juliana. It was Juliana who knew and felt Boston™s racism – after all without her husband by her side she becomes just another anonymous, albeit stunningly beautiful Brazilian woman. As such surely she was subject to misogynist, xenophobic, and racist behavior from the common Boston populace.
It was more than likely Juliana who demanded that she and her husband live in an ultra-exclusive condominium complex – one reserved for the super-rich and powerful – and live in the condo within that complex with the most favorable view of their surroundings. It was Juliana who loathed Boston and wanted out of the city, and into an environment where she, alone as a woman living day-to-day would be respected for her beauty, her intelligence, and respected as Manny Ramirez™s wife. Despite its Hispanic-largely Mexican populace, Texas is not the place where this can happen, which is why neither the Houston Astros nor the Texas Rangers were seriously considered as teams Ramirez would play for after leaving Boston.
In fact, only in Los Angeles could Juliana Ramirez be happy.
Now that she is comfortable perhaps Juliana Ramirez would like to bear another child by and with her husband.
Here is the kicker. If you perform a Google search you will find some 66,400 search results for œhCG ””” œhCG – male sperm production. The drug™s most common use outside of being a women™s fertility drug is ””“ as a male fertility drug.
Not an erectile dysfunction drug, but a male fertility-sperm production drug – an œSED, or sperm-enhancing drug, if you will. T.J. Quinn said MLB says in response to the œI got the drug from a a doctor reasoning as an lame excuse because baseball players have access to team physicians who Quinn says are among the œbest in the world. Quinn himself stated this with his usual snarky, incredulous vocal inflection when scoffing at what he feels is a lie by an athlete.
If the Ramirez™s are having a problem producing another child – œgetting pregnant – what happens if, after undergoing tests, they find that it is Manny who needs sperm production stimulation, that it is Manny who is having œthe problem? What if Manny is suffering from the early effects of what is called œKlinefelter™s Syndrome, which is treated specifically with hCG?
Crooked or stupid is a false choice.
So Manny might be infertile? And he goes to a doctor with apparently no knowledge or experience in the banned substance list. We’re supposed to believe he’s that much of a complete fucking idiot? And that a top-flight pro athlete has a chromosomal syndrome that creates lifelong developmental weakness and chronic health issues? If I were an MLB player, I wouldn’t take Flintstones vitamins without talking to the team doctor.
MLB’s new slogan: The suspension of disbelief.
well, to play devil’s advocate (or rather, to repeat points dwil made in his original post), there’s more than one reason one might take HCG and there’s all sorts of reasons why you might not leave a personal issue to team doctors. Admittedly, this is a pretty huge reach, but the contrast between Wilson’s hypothesis and everyone else’s rush to judgement is worth mulling over.
As far as whether or not Manny’s a complete fucking idiot, much of the established sports media has been saying as much for years. In this instance, however, it seems easier for many to believe Ramirez is the embodiment of evil rather than naive at best, clueless at worst.
I’d love to hear a full explanation but it seems that Manny is happy to let us all speculate and not even address his own team. Maybe he’s shooting blanks, but until he’s available to give an interview where he actually says that, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume he’s juicing. It sucks that we’re speculating on his sexual (in)adequacy but he’s a public figure and it’s not like anyone from his era has been excluded from cheating. For the record, I’m starting to not care anymore since it seems that Curt Schilling is the only one who ever played in that era with a halo over his head, but there’s a healthy amount of Schadenfreude around characters who quit on there teams with fake injuries and sulk because the team won’t trigger an option year for a man who has more money than god (and almost as much as A-Rod).
I don’t know what it is about baseball, but Manny’s suspension is truly disappointing here in LA. There’s some truth to all the cornball stuff about the game’s sense of renewal and the boys of summer and all the 10-cent poetry Vin Scully likes to spout. We’re all beyond surprised about PEDs, but disappointment? Not yet. He’s the only true star the Dodgers have had in what feels like a generation. The whole city has Manny billboards all over the place. The only reason I wanted to get to Chavez this year was to see him play. I don’t think I ever said that about Jeff Kent. I don’t think of him as evil or stupid, so much as a massive bummer. He’s a headline around the country, but he’s a huge presence to the city. Everytime I see a Manny billboard or banner on Sunset Blvd, and they’re everywhere, I just think, “shithead.” It reminds me of every other thing wrong in the world, instead of the sense of stupid fun he brought to the Dodgers. No more.