Manny Is A Hall Of Famer

You can say what you want about Manny Ramirez - quitter, cheater or wacko.

I say he's a Hall of Famer.  No doubt about it.

On Friday, the Tampa Bay outfielder failed an MLB drug test - again.  According to several media outlets, Ramirez had a positive drug test in spring training.  So instead of serving a mandatory 100 game suspension (for his 2nd positive test), Manny decided to call it a career and retire.

But it's hard to argue against his inclusion into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Look at his stats.  Ramirez hit 555 home runs and had 1,831 RBIs in his career, and led the Red Sox to the World Series crowns in 2004 & 2007.  He routinely punished the Sox chief rival-Yankees - especially during crunch time.

Manny's only one of 5 players to hit over 300 with more than 500 homers. How can you argue with the numbers?  He’s one of the greatest right-handed hitters of our generation.

The Hall of Fame honors the best players of the era.  It's the Hall of Fame - not the hall of district judges.  Get over it people. 

I'm not going to the Hall of Fame for a morals lesson.  If you're doing that, you're going to the wrong building on Sundays.  I'm going to the Hall to learn about or recall baseball history.  And the steroid era in baseball was part of MLB history.

I'm not looking at a steroid user to be a role model for my kids.  I’m the one that's going to raise my son, not Manny Ramirez!

I’m not saying it’s okay to cheat – but that’s the way it was back then.  It’s called keeping up with the Jones’.  Is it really cheating if everyone is doing it?

The entire era in which Manny played in was tainted.  The 90's and early 2000's was the wild-wild west in baseball. Guys on every team were doing roids. Every team.  Juiced hitters were going up against juiced and clean pitchers and vice-versa.

Just because you do steroids, doesn't mean you can hit homers. It still takes an unbelievable skill.  Manny's numbers are sick and so were his baseball skills. 

If you want to excluding known-guys that tested positive for steroids, that's fine.  But what happens when you let in a guy that we later learn was doing steroids too?  Do you kick him out?  Or do you re-evaluate the guys you previously left out?

If you want to let Alex Rodriguez or Mark McGwire in the Hall, you have to put Manny in.  You can't separate the steroid users.  It's not a case-by-case basis.  It's either all the steroid users or in or none of them.