This Dodger fan's perspective

Well, everyone in the world knows it, and just thinking about it makes me want to repeatedly bang my head against a giant block of ice, but I guess I have to lead this post with the big Dodger news from today: Manny Ramirez has tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and will be suspended for 50 games.

He apparently was taking something called hGC, which is a female fertility drug used to combat erectile dysfunction by increasing testosterone production in the body. First off, if you actually believe that Manny was only using that shit because he couldn't get a fucking erection, then I'd like to sell you some New York Times stock. The drug he tested positive for is commonly used by PED users as either a testosterone trigger after a steroid cycle or as a masking agent for a worse drug, and it's like 99.9% certain that Manny used it for one of those two reasons. The sooner you can just accept that, the sooner we can all move on and see what has to happen from here. Ready to accept it yet? Yes? Good.

This is what I posted on dodgerblues.com's message board right after hearing the news: "I'm never rooting for Manny again. Never. He could hit a walkoff grand slam to win the World Series and I wouldn't care. He just destroyed his legacy and our season. Fuck him. I'll still root for the Dodgers, but I'm never rooting for Manny again." Is that an overreaction? Hell fucking no. Manny ruined my entire winter with his "Will we or won't we sign him?" shit by turning down like 20 offers that would have made him one of the richest people on the planet before eventually "settling" for one (in fucking March) simply so that he could rake for a year and then leave for more money from another team. He was already on shaky ground with me entering the season, and now that this news has broke, he's dead to me. Even on the 0.01% chance that he really hasn't been using steroids and this is just a one-time usage for a personal medical problem, he still knowingly risked the Dodgers' entire season by taking it. I can't root for a guy who puts himself before the team as much as he has. And therefore, what I didn't want to believe since July 31st, 2008 has finally and truly registered with me: Manny is all about Manny. He did quit on the Red Sox, not because he disliked living in Boston but because he wanted a fat paycheck. He concentrated and played hard for the Dodgers for the last half of 2008 not because he wanted to win a championship but because he wanted a fat paycheck. And in 2009, he took steroids not because he wanted his team to do well, but because he himself wanted to do well so that he could get a fat paycheck. Everything that I've continually denied about him for the last 9 months has turned out to be true. I feel completely betrayed by somebody that I'd undyingly supported and respected. It's a heartbreaking feeling.

It's also heartbreaking on another personal level. Before Manny became a Dodger on July 31st, 2008, my Dodger fan experience had been pretty "blah." They'd made the playoffs in a breathtakingly exciting 2004 season featuring 53 come-from-behind wins (ironically, a season also now marred by the realization that Eric Gagne, Paul Lo Duca, and Guillermo Mota are noted steroid users) and had had a similar run at the end of the 2006 season to also reach the playoffs, but for the most part, they were a bunch of clueless underacheiving losers during the time that I followed them. They had no identity and were usually pretty boring to watch. My frustration came to a head in the first half of 2008, when high-priced black holes Andruw Jones, Juan Pierre, Nomar Garciaparra, Jeff Kent, and Jason Schmidt were all clogging the payroll and embarrassing every Dodger fan that had committed themselves to following the team. Here was a franchise that had the most money and the most power of any team in the NL West, and they were wasting it all on these over-the-hill schmucks when they could have been spending it wisely and ruling the division? It made me feel ashamed to simply wear my Dodger cap regularly. But then when Manny came aboard, everything changed. The Dodgers had a leader, a slugger, an identity, and a true team. I witnessed Manny's first three games as a Dodger and saw him spray line drives and home runs all over the park, and also witnessed the Dodgers actually win when I saw them in person (after seeing them lose the previous 11 games I went to). I watched nearly every second of every Dodger game from then on out; I saw them rally in September to overtake the Diamondbacks for the division title and then get the "postseason series monkey" off their backs by sweeping the Cubs in three of the most enjoyable Dodger games I've ever watched. And of course, this season, I saw them jump out to a 21-8 start, win their first 13 games at home to set a major league record, and lead the NL West by 6.5 games before school even got out. From July 31st, 2008 to May 6th, 2009, you couldn't ask for many better teams to be a fan of than the Dodgers. It was one of the greatest sports fan experiences of my life.

Now? All that is stained, tainted. I'm not sure if Manny was doping during the 2008 season, but you can't rule anything out, and if we cheated to win our first postseason series in 20 years then I don't know if I'll ever remember it the same way. I certainly won't remember this magical 21-8 start the same way ever again. And that's all Manny's fault. He's soiled every good Dodger fan memory I have from the last 9 months. And here's the absolute worst thing: all throughout today, I've been thinking things like, "Man, I really wish Andruw Jones had just done what everyone thought he would in 2008," and "What if we'd signed Torii Hunter in the 2007 offseason?" The point of these thoughts was, of course, to wish that the Dodgers could have had all this recent success without Manny ever needing to be involved. But the same thing always came back to me: how can you be sure of anyone anymore? For all I know, Torii and Andruw and fucking everyone else in the entire sport is on some kind of drug cycle, and I'll never feel completely safe about anyone again. My favorite player of all time is Ken Griffey Jr., and over the last 6 hours I've gone from feeling 100% sure that he never took steroids to maybe like 10% sure. My favorite Dodger is Andre Ethier, and I wouldn't be surprised in the least if news broke tomorrow that he was caught with steroids too. Most fans my age lost their baseball innocence once news broke that Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire's home run chase was illegitimate, but I didn't really care because neither guy played for my favorite team. It's much, much, much different when the news comes out about someone from the team that you devote so much of your time and energy to, because you just feel like they stabbed you in the back. And Manny did.

So where do we all go from here? Well, as for tonight, I'd bet everything I own that the Dodgers' home winning streak comes to a quick and decisive end; Juan Pierre will probably be the only one on the team who gets a hit, and I could see like four or five errors being made in a 2-0 or 3-0 Washington shutout. I can see the Dodgers struggling to achieve a .500 mark in the next 50 games without Manny, because I mean...without him, they're a decent offensive team with a mediocre pitching staff, and maybe like 1% better than the rest of the NL West instead of their current 500%. I can see Manny returning from his suspension on July 3rd (again, in a weird twist of fate, I'll be at that game in San Diego) and deservedly getting booed lustily for a couple of weeks before his return to Dodger Stadium on July 16th, when the clueless Dodger fans will give him a standing ovation before his first atbat and act like nothing happened. I can definitely see the Dodgers still getting to the playoffs (I mean, come on; barring a big trade, who in the NL West besides the Dodgers has the chops to finish with more than 83 wins?), at which point I'll be faced with the unenviable dilemma of how I can root for my own team without rooting for Manny. I can see Ned and Frank doing all they can to keep Manny from exercising his player option for 2010 because they'll want him gone due to all the bad PR...but Manny will exercise it anyway, because he'll know that nobody will want to pay more than $20 million to a steroid user. And then I can see myself agonizing over the same dilemma for the entire 2010 season, trying to find a way to root for the Dodgers without rooting for Manny.

So, in the end, I guess this steroid news has made me question my love of baseball, my love of the Dodgers, and my love of Manny, while basically ensuring that it's going to be a tough time for me to be a Dodger fan until the year 2011. America's pastime, indeed. May Juan Pierre bat .500 in Manny's absence, may Ethier/Kemp/Loney/Martin step up in their team's time of need and all collectively realize their full potential, may Manny return and rake while I cheer for the team's success instead of his, and may Ned and Frank have the balls to get rid of him any way they can once this season is through. For today, I still say Go Dodgers...albeit with much, much, much less enthusiasm than I did yesterday.