The Death of Mannywood
[caption id="attachment_43546" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The game is not as interesting as his nose, apparently."]
[/caption]This article summarises my feelings about Manny's return exactly: I like him about as much as I'd like to crap out my intestines. When he first came to the Dodgers (my favourite team, bar none, wind, rain, or shine), I didn't join the throngs of fans who were so excited they wet their pants. I felt he was too expensive to keep, he goofed around on the field (aka "Manny being Manny"), and couldn't field half as well as the sprightly Juan Pierre, who runs like he's got freaking rockets strapped to his feet and is one of those batters that rarely gets struck out. Needless to say, I was angry enough to burst into flame when Juan Pierre was bumped back to a relief player, while Manny was allowed to dick around in his stead. And then, Manny was suspended for drug use.
[caption id="attachment_43567" align="aligncenter" width="293" caption="What!? Steroids are bad!?"]
[/caption]It was justice, but it was hollow justice. He wasn't banned from the game, he was not ostracised, the way Bonds and so many other players who injected steroids were, he wasn't even scolded by his mom. Dodger fans, it pains me to say, waved him off as if he were leaving to fight overseas, like some travesty of a hero. The suspension wasn't even a slap on the wrist. It's like he was sent home to play video games and relax a bit while everyone else did the heavy lifting. Juan Pierre played beautifully in Manny's absence, and, in truth, nobody really seemed to miss him. The Dodgers won game after game, Pierre hit ball after ball, and Manny languished in the minor leagues, hitting an embarrasing .190 (in baseball language, that means your comatose grandmother could hit better than him).
[caption id="attachment_43580" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mannywood: Like Hollywood, but everyone wants to kiss a 'roided up Manny Ramirez."]
[/caption]His return to the Dodgers on Friday, however, was uneventful. Mostly, the fans were the ones who were more excited about this, rather than the team itself. And it's not like Manny did anything important. He hit one homerun, but got out pretty much every other time he was batting. On Sunday, he didn't play, but Pierre was back, playing left field, and hitting baseballs, as if each ball had wronged him somehow. He was stealing bases, running fast enough to leave scorchmarks in the dirt, and catching fly balls. All was right with the world. And yet, it wasn't. Manny started baseball like any other: he was thin, but in excellent shape, lithe and strong, not the lumbering behemoth bloated with steroids. He had the most shameful mark in baseball placed upon him: Steroid user. And he is still something akin to a god to most Dodger fans, while the rest of the team is seemingly tossed by the wayside.
[caption id="attachment_43581" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Juan Pierre, playing excellent baseball without the use of steroids. What a horrible role model."]
[/caption]Will this last? Or will "Welcome to Mannywood" signs slowly find their way into the garbage cans of baseball fans, their "Manny #99" jerseys hung up in their closets? If Dodger fans are actually Dodger fans, they will see what a farce this hero-worship of Manny is, and will return to watching the Dodgers play, rather than watching Manny play. It happened in San Francisco with Barry Bonds. He was given a hero's welcome when he went back to play for the Giants, but without performance-enhancing drugs, he couldn't play. He was slowly phased out, seeing less and less game time until he stopped altogether and simply fell off the radar. With Manny, it will likely be the same. The Dodgers demonstrated that they have enough talent on the team to be getting on with, and manager Joe Torre, who led the Yankees to 10 postseasons, is smart enough to know that the Dodgers will be just fine without Manny. This is what I hope, anyway, being a baseball purist.
