It's been awhile since I posted something and even longer since I've written anything, but I felt it was appropriate to post after hearing yesterday about the 2003 positive performance enhancing drug (PED) trust of Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz.
My first response when I heard the news was: Duh, I knew that already.
And my second response -- and one that I felt when Alex Rodriguez came out and admitted to using steroids from 2001-2003 - was: So what...
Listen, it's my view that these men are entertainers. They make gobs of money and are here for my enjoyment.
They are here to hit home runs.
I am not a big believer in the whole: they artifically enhanced themselves and ruined the sanctity of baseballs sacred records. That to me is for the historians and baseball purists to fight over. And I'm not either.
Let me ask you: Does anyone in America - besides U.S. Weekly and Star Magazine - complain and criticize actors/actresses get plastic surgery to improve their appearance?
No, of course not.
Yet, they are doing so to prolong their career, land them bigger contracts and contribute to our entertainment.
See, what I'm getting at?
Believe me, I'm as pissed as the next Yankees fan that steroids and other PEDs contributed to helping Manny, Ortiz and yet to be named - Trot Nixon, Kevin Millar, Johnny Damon (yes, I know he's now a Yankee) and others on the Red Sox in accomplishing the impossible when they came back to beat the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS.
Yes, it still burns.
But I'm not so naive to think that no one on those Yankee teams were also using PEDs. That would also be impossible.
When it comes down to it, I believe that these players have every right to do whatever they need to do to earn a living.
They are entertainers.
They acknowledge it. They are doing this to their bodies in the short-term to earn gaud-awful sums of money...money that I and many others will never see in their life time. And they will have to live with that in the long-term when they see what these PEDs do to their bodies.
That's why I'm not shocked, surprised or saddened by yesterday's news. ...
Thank you David Ortiz. ...
