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The Dog Ate My Urinanalysis

My son in public relations explained to me that damage control involves putting unfortunate events in the best possible light. Better he should have told Manny Ramirez.

Ramirez was suspended for 50 games for testing positive for a banned substance, allegedly a female hormone that can be used as a masking agent for anabolic steroids. Taking banned substances when he KNOWS he'll be tested means a ballplayer is, among other things, a prize chump.

That's bad. But what, after all, does it really mean? If they threw the chumps out of the Hall of Fame, Cooperstown would finally be as exclusive a club as Bob Feller and Joe Morgan always said it should be.

Ramirez's explanation of extenuating circumstances, however, makes his brainpower or lack of same look the least of his problems. According to Manny, he was prescribed the banned substance by a physician whom he was consulting on a "personal medical issue."

The hormone in question does have a legitimate medical use. It's prescribed for male sexual dysfunction.

So, in Manny's best case scenario of this affair, he's being treated for sexual dysfunction by a physician who is a prize chump. I'd say a doctor too clueless to ask his multimillionaire patient if this drug is on the banned list before he writes the prescription qualifies for chumpdom squared.

Given my druthers between the two alternatives, "I got caught cheating because I was really, really stupid, and "I'm being treated for secual dysfunction by a doctor who's an idiot," I know which I'd choose. Public opinion be damned.

posted by Michael Gee @ 3:18 PM