Manny Ramirez: Former Red Sox Slugger Destroys Legacy with PED's

Manny Ramirez retires in Tampa Bay and ruins once proud legacy.

Call me crazy but I think Manny Ramirez would have made it into the Hall of Fame if this hadn?t occurred.

But those dreams are over for Manny and he?s just another victim of his own stupidity.

Scott Miller at CBSSports.com writes that this second failed test doesn?t just prove Manny as a cheater, but Manny as someone too dim to understand the bigger picture.

The stunning part of it isn't just that Ramirez wound up getting caught twice in baseball's tightened drug net, it's that there remains this giant loophole within the game's improved policing -- still no testing for human growth hormone -- and Manny still got tripped up despite that. I mean, duh?

When caught the first time, it was natural to at least consider giving him the benefit of the doubt that maybe Manny, heading toward his upper 30s, succumbed to Vitamin S temptation to combat advancing age.

Nailed a second time, it's clear that anybody who believes that also believes there is a secret key for unlocking the batting cage.

It?s stunning to thing that Manny, a man who claimed to never care what anyone else thought, would be so desperate to regain his once legendary form, that he would go the quick route of steroids, rather than call it quits and keep whatever part of his legacy he still had left.

Whether it?s true or not, I would have believed that Manny was a great hitter without steroids. I could have believed that the fear of getting slow and old propelled him to do something outside his character.

But to have the stupidity to have been caught, have your legacy hurt by it, and then rather than leaving well enough alone and allowing people to debate when the steroid use starter, you did it again and ensured your legacy as one of the games great cheaters.

It?s no surprise that a man whose career was filled with so many embarrassing moments would find himself retiring in the most embarrassing way.

It?s a shame that Manny couldn?t have retired as one of the great right handed hitters of all time.

Instead he?s thought of as a fool.

How fitting.

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