Watch as Prince’s shot rolls around the rim FIVE TIMES before falling though.
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In a rather shocking development, Major League Baseball announced on Friday that Rays’ outfielder Manny Ramirez has decided to retire.
As has always been the case with Manny, there’s more to the story. Michael Schmidt of the New York Times reports that Ramirez tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in spring training and he would have faced a 100-game suspension had he not retired. After he served a 50 game suspension in 2009, it would have been Manny’s second suspension for PEDs in the last three years.
“Rather than continue with the process under the program, Ramirez has informed MLB that he is retiring as an active player,” a statement from MLB said. “If Ramirez seeks reinstatement in the future, the process under the Drug Program will be completed. MLB will not have any further comment on this matter.”
Wow. Manny finishes with a .312 career batting average, 555 home runs and 1,831 runs batted in. As previously mentioned, he was a 12-time All-Star, a nine-time Silver Slugger Award winner, a two-time World Series champion and he also led the AL in RBI (1999), batting average (2002) and home runs (2004).
But even given his outstanding numbers, his career has definitely been marred by these two positive PED tests. Manny has always kind of been given a free pass because he’s goofy and entertaining. But Roger Clemens is vilified for his (supposed) use of PEDs. Barry Bonds is a monster. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa are cheaters. What about Manny? This is a guy that was suspended for 50 games in 2009 for a positive PED test and then two years later he tests positive again? Did he think he wasn’t going to get caught the second time? Did he think baseball would leave him alone after the first positive test?
“Should we test Manny again?”
“Nah, dude isn’t stupid enough to try it again. Let’s just go on the honesty policy…”
And now Ramirez just ups and retires instead of serving the 100 games. What a slap in the face to the Rays. They made a financial commitment to him, he made a commit to them that he would play and then he turns around and retires a week into the season after an 0-6 start and a positive PED test. What a joke.
But hey, that’s just Manny, I guess. The term “Manny being Manny” has always allowed him to come and go as he pleases. He’s going to leave the game just as strangely as he came into it.
For an explanation of my methodology, check out my point guard post from a few days ago. Marcin Gortat was the only big man in the study that was traded and since he was traded early and played much bigger minutes in Phoenix, I just ignored his Orlando numbers.
Below is a chart of 51 big men. Why 51? Because it’s my study, that’s why. Round numbers are overrated anyway.
The 2011 MLB season isn’t even two weeks old and already we’ve had our first players-only meeting called.
According to Tampa Bay.com, Rays’ outfielder Johnny Damon, being the veteran he is, decided to call a brief players-only meeting after the club extended its season-opening losing streak to 0-6.
“We just talked amongst ourselves to make sure we stay together,” Damon said. “This is not what we envisioned where we were going to be at this point. We can either sulk about it or embrace it and say, we have to get better. We have to forget about all this that happened. 0-6, it stinks, we hate to be in this position, but it’s not the end of the world. We know we have to go out and start winning games and we feel like once we do and once we get that and try not to put so much pressure on ourselves we can start to roll. And we keep saying hopefully sooner than later. …
“We’re in this together. There’s not going to be any separation of why aren’t the hitters hitting. No, we’re together in this. We’re 0-6 together. And now it’s time for us to win some games together.”
Damon is a good pro and he’s been around the game a long time. But there’s no magic recipe to keeping guys happy and united as a team: You have to freaking win. Damon is barely hitting the weight of a newborn baby (1-for-19, .053) and his defensive play has been comical at times. I respect what he’s trying to do but the bottom line is that the Rays just need to play better on a whole. They need to pick up that first win, and then get the second, and then the third, etc. Winning cures all.
That said, I think the bigger problem here is that the Rays just aren’t that good. They lost Carl Crawford, Rafael Soriano, Carlos Pena, Matt Garza, Joaquin Benoit, Grant Balfour and Dioner Navarro and replaced them with Johnny Damon, Manny Ramirez, Kyle Farnsworth and Felipe Lopez. I’m sorry, but the way they’ve started off the year isn’t surprising. I didn’t expect them to go a combined 0-6 in their first two series, but there are many people who believe that this club will struggle all year and I’m among them.
A year after he told Stephen Strasburg to “suck it up” after the Nationals’ starter injured his elbow (which resulted in him having Tommy John surgery), Rob Dibble is opening his mouth again.
According to Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post, Dibble claims that he was let go at MASN because of an e-mail that Strasburg’s father wrote to the Nationals’ owner Ted Lerner.
“Listen, it’s their team, they acted in their own interests,” he told FoxSports.com columnist Mark Kriegel. “And I’m gonna tell you something that I’ve never told anybody before. It was basically Strasburg’s father [who] e-mailed the owner and basically was offended by what I said.
“Now remember, I said that on my own radio show on another network, and his father e-mailed the owner and the owner wanted me out of there. so that’s the bottom line. So that should end it. I want Stephen to go on, never have my name brought up and have a great career. I had a great career, I had fun, had a great seven years, and it’s sad for me that people still associate me with him. There should be no association with him.”
As Steinberg points out, if Dibble doesn’t want his name to be associated with Strasburg then he shouldn’t be telling a national audience that the young pitcher’s father is the reason he no longer works for MASN. That’s just dumb.
That said, if Dibble is telling the truth then this entire situation is ridiculous. A father of one of the younger players got his feelings hurt so he wrote an e-mail to the team’s owner to get him kicked off air? Oh, brother. Is Strasburg’s father going to write an angry letter to every person who criticizes his son over his career? Because if he writes in to TSR, I’ll delete. I swear to God I’ll delete it.
Dibble is a loudmouth with little or no tact, but he shouldn’t have been let go for speaking his mind (regardless of whether you think he was wrong to tell Strasburg to “suck it up” or not). I mean, that’s what MASN paid him for, right? You don’t hire Rob freaking Dibble to sit there like Monte from the “Major League” movies and you certainly don’t fire him for being brash. Again: He’s Rob Dibble.
This isn’t high school athletics and millionaire players (or their fathers for that matter) shouldn’t be protected from the stinging words of the big bad media.
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