Manny is saying he will be a role model if some team will hire him.
Manny Ramirez promises to change if he returns to baseball
Reaffirms fitness as it was in 2008.
Por: Jorge Morejón/CNN
Manny Ramirez is still Manny. Unpredictable, moody, capable of surprising us at every step, but not necessarily on the positive side.
For years, as his undeniable talent was declining, the Dominican Republic strove to reassert his role as the bad guy in baseball.
Now Manny is saying he will be a role model if some team will hire him.
Sacked twice for the use of banned substances to improve performance, Ramirez must serve 50 games of punishment in 2009, when he played for the Dodgers in Los Angeles.
Just started the 2011 season with Tampa Bay, relapsed into the trap, but chose to retire rather than face a suspension for 100 games.
But a few weeks ago publicly apologized and sought the permission of Major League Baseball to return, as the imposed sentence was shortened to 50 games.
To those who defend fair play, fair competition, where all enter the field on equal terms and only one can succeed under his best advantage using their talents and abilities, reinstatement seems controversial and a joke in itself.
Well, the joke in itself is the current sanctions; policies which the majors has on doping, which for many keep looking the other way as they did in the 90's.
So they needed a McGwire and a Sosa to save baseball after the devastating 1994 strike and so they conveniently to looked the other way.
Sometimes I think that neither the commissioner Bud Selig and other executives of the majors, were eager to implement a drug policy and did so only when circumstances forced them.
But there remains much ambiguity and hypocrisy. The famous list of 103 players who tested positive in a doping control has been filtered to a trickle and the few names that are known so far seem to have been intentionally brought to light.
Why not publish the list once and clean the slate?
It may not be appropriate to appear and reveal a name that might be one of the more emblematic players of today.
That would be a blow to the credibility of the organizations.
This suspicion is hanging over an entire generation of players.
To complete this ambiguity, now Manny might return. And you can bet that if he returns, he will return in the midst of thunderous applause, like a triumphant warrior.
Forget about Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro.
At this point, no one can dispute Manny the dubious honor of being the main emblem of the steroid era.
If they allow his return, skipping half of the ridiculous penalty applied, the majors are showing they still love that stage where doping was rampant and that Manny's will to change things is so ludicrous as to believe that Manny Ramirez can ever become a role model.
