Daily Zoot - 5/11/09 - Manny Being Zoot

The Daily Zoot is all the news you needed to know yesterday, soon

-Today is my Dad's Birthday; so everybody yell, "Happy Birthday Doc Rubes!" He doesn't have facebook so this will be his only opportunity to get birthday wishes from dozens of near-strangers. 

-There are very few athletes on this planet that I love more than Manny Ramirez. I live very close to Red Sox Nation, but I am not a Red Sox Fan; I got to see all the good without feeling any of the bad. I got to see all of his delightful chicanery with both the bat and the glove without feeling as though he had stepped on my toes when asking for a trade. Everyone who plays MLB has to love the game, but I don't think anyone has as much fun playing it as Manny does. Is his admiring a 500 ft. home run any more narcissistic as an artist hanging a painting in a gallery for everyone to see? If he high fives a fan or two in the middle of an inning is that any less appropriate than shaking hands in the middle of a political campaign? The answer to both of those questions is obviously yes, but that is what I love about Manny; he does what he does no matter what you think about how he does it.

That is why I was so personally crushed when I found out he was suspended 50 games for violating the leagues substance abuse policy. I was especially crushed when I found out what it was for: Manny got got because he was taking a medication called HCG that is most often used as a female-fertility aid (Excuse me? Could somebody fact check this Zoot? that can't be right). The reason it is not allowed in Baseball is because players can sometimes use it to restart the testosterone process after a finishing a steroid cycle. There's gonna be a lot of circular talk on TV about why Manny needed those pills because no one wants to say it exactly. I've been shameless for quite a while now so I don't mind clearing it up for everyone. Here's the situation:

One of the most well known side effects for steroids is that it shrinks your little Mannys. From what I heard its not subtle either, its a very drastic and noticeable alteration. By that I mean its not like, "O man, I just jumped into a cold pool!" but that its more like, "O man, the knot just came undone from my water balloons." Steroid users take drugs like Female Fertility to  try and minimize or even reverse that effect. The goal is to remove one of the more noticeable (depending whose looking I guess) side-effects of steroid use.

 Manny claims that his doctor gave him the medicine for a personal medical issue. Unfortunately, TCS or Tiny Cojones Syndrome isn't gonna fly in the eyes of Major League Baseball. Manny will be eligible to return to Baseball on July 3rd at the earliest. Its not going to hurt the Dodgers, they have a big enough lead to maintain until Manny comes back. I'm not sure its even going to hurt the game (What's the effect of a drop of water on an already overflowing bucket?). It is going to hurt me however, as I now have to watch baseball for the game itself and not for the outrageousness Manny might bring to it on a nightly basis.