Did Manny Ramirez use steroids?

Logan on 04 8, 2009

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from Jose Canseco, so it should come as no surprise that he is again in the news running his mouth. Who’s the victim this time? Manny Ramirez. What is the topic? Steroids. Surprise, surprise.

Jose must be either running out of money, working on another book or is just starved for attention because this guy just won’t go away. Canseco recently made claims that Manny Ramirez didn’t receive the long-term contract that he held out so long for this off-season because there were concerns regarding his name appearing on the list of players who tested positive during anonymous testing a few years back. This is the same “anonymous” test that Alex Rodriguez appeared positive on. How sure is Canseco about his claims? He says that Manny’s name is “most likely, 90%” on the list.

Now I’ll give Canseco credit for being correct about A-Rod, and he did initiate the clean-up of the MLB’s steroid problem (although he went about it entirely in the wrong way), but at this point I think we would all prefer that he just shut up and go away. Most baseball fans have pretty much accepted that steroids were very prevalent in professional baseball in the last couple decades, so why keep beating a dead horse so to speak? If Canseco had any solid facts to back up this claim, then why wouldn’t he have come out with this earlier? It’s like he’s saving a few big names in his back pocket for every time he feels forgotten.

Do I think Manny could possibly have taken steroids? Absolutely. The guy wasn’t exactly huge when he came into the league, and when I see him hit balls 400 feet that nobody has any business even hitting the ball out of the infield (like the home run he hit at Wrigley in the NLCS last season that nearly bounced on the plate), it’s hard to not consider it. But on the other hand, nobody works harder than Manny Ramirez when it comes to his swing. The guy is at the ball park hours before every game working in the cages, and that’s well before batting practice. So did he take steroids? Who knows, but that’s besides the point. The point here is that Jose Canseco has become a joke.

Jose has had an interesting and sad post-baseball life to say the least. He was a cast member of Season 5 of The Surreal Life. The rest of the cast included Janice Dickinson, Pepa from “Salt-N-Pepa,” Bronson Pinchot, Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, Caprice Bourret and Carey Hart. I’d say he fits in pretty well with those rejects. In May of 2008, Canseco accepted a challenge extended to him from Vai Sikahema to fight him for $30,000. Despite Canseco’s claims that he has a black belt in Kung Fu, Taekwondo and Muay Tai, the 5’9” Sikahema proceeded to knock out the former major league in the first round. On January 24, 2009, Canseco decided to fight someone that he figured he’d stand a better chance against, so he fought former child actor and fellow freak show Danny Bonaduce. The three-round match ended in a draw. Stay hot Jose. Outside of that, Jose has been accused of spousal abuse, has lost his home, gotten into bar fights and plead guilty to trying to smuggle illegal drugs into the US from Mexico. The guy is a dumbass.

Soon he will be fighting “Screech” from “Saved by the Bell,” or wrestling a bear in some run down bar in Philly just to pay his bills. Jose, just shut up and go away. Nobody cares about what you have to say at this point.

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