Fans Soulless Dopes If They Elect Manny

The most inane drug-related rule in my sportswriting life? Back in the old, wacky Continental Basketball Association, naturally. Upon walking through a hallway of weed fumes at the Holiday Inn in Bangor, Maine, where I was doing a feature on a traveling minor-league team obviously participating in cannabis exploration, I checked out my trusty CBA handbook. It confirmed that players were forbidden to use recreational drugs, all right.

On the "day of a game."

Otherwise, smoke and snort away.

Now, years later, I've found a more absurd rule. According to baseball's drug agreement, "A player shall be deemed to have been eligible to play in the All-Star Game if he was elected or selected to play; the commissioner's office shall not exclude a player from eligibility for election or selection because he is suspended under the program." Meaning, Manny Ramirez -- villain of the Scammywood steroids suspension that continues to rock the sport -- is eligible to play in the All-Star Game next month if enough fans vote for his inclusion in the National League starting lineup.

Why commissioner Bud Selig and the owners allow such language in their legal agreements with the Players Association, I have no idea. Actually, I do have an idea: Selig is a wishy-washy mope who has allowed Donald Fehr to push him around like a 98-pound weakling for almost two decades. But this wouldn't be an issue if America spoke loudly and clearly about its opposition to performance-enhancing drugs in the All-Star voting process.

Unfortunately, it hasn't. Ramirez is squarely in the running for a starting berth, ranking fifth this week among NL outfielders with 635,530 votes. The good news: He dropped from fourth last week and was passed by the far more deserving Raul Ibanez, who ranks among league leaders in the major hitting categories in his first season with the Phillies. The bad news: Ramirez still is only 106,000 behind one of the league's top hitters, Carlos Beltran, and is ahead of worthy statistical candidates such as Brad Hawpe, Hunter Pence, Mike Cameron and Adam Dunn.

Shame on any fan who voted for Ramirez after May 7, when he was banned 50 games in another bleak episode for a sport that can't shed its attachment to the evil juice. "A dark day for baseball and certainly this organization," said Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti, Ramirez's boss, after the star of "Mannywood" was found with artificial testosterone in his blood. I would have thought that fans, even in Los Angeles, would demonstrate their disgust by not granting him their vote. But most of those 635,530 tallies came after the suspension announcement, a creepy acknowledgment that some people are starting not to care whether superstars cheat.

To vote Ramirez into the All-Star game would be a white flag -- and a hall pass for all the scumbags who have smeared the game, from Roger Clemens to Barry Bonds to Alex Rodriguez to Mark McGwire and the rest. Just because folks are worn down by years of steroids coverage doesn't mean they should lower their standards and accept the cheats. American League fans have it right, recognizing that A-Rod should be punished for his steroids admission; he's a distant third in the third-base balloting behind an emerging superstar, Tampa Bay's Evan Longoria, who leads all AL players with 1,036,071 votes and is more than 600,000 clear of Rodriguez. But seeing Ramirez in fifth bugs the hell out of me, especially after his manager, Joe Torre, issued a plea that voters do the right thing and snub the concept of Mannywood in St. Louis.

"I think if you asked Manny, he'd give you the same answer," Torre said. "I think the significance of the All-Star Game is to reward players who have a good first half. We don't always do that, because it's a popularity vote, for the most part. If you want to include the fans, that's how it's got to be."

It's not simply a matter of better numbers. The core issue here is integrity, the message a fan would send by prioritizing Ramirez's popularity over -- we warily assume -- the steroid-free results of Ibanez, NL outfield vote leader Ryan Braun, Beltran and others. Are we so into glorifying a dreadlocked, wild-swinging free spirit that we ignore that he committed a cardinal sin, a gross error in judgment that could keep him out of the Hall of Fame? "The fans have a right to vote, but I think it's probably not fair to the guys who are out there playing," said Cardinals manager Tony La Russa. "It's pretty tough to do what he did and then miss a good part of the season. But it's up to the fans."

That's what scares me. The All-Star Game should validate baseball's elite players in a specific year. Last July, it celebrated the return of Josh Hamilton from substance abuse when he battered old Yankee Stadium in a memorable barrage during the Home Run Derby. This July, you don't want to do the opposite and bring down the sport by welcoming Ramirez to the party. If the All-Star Game counts, as Selig ordained when he granted home-field advantage in the World Series to the victorious team, it should adhere to the highest ethics. For some reason, Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel thinks Ramirez should be eligible because his suspension ends July 3, almost two weeks before the MIdsummer Classic. "The All-Star Game is for the fans and I think if he got voted in, then it would be appropriate for him to play," said Manuel, who will manage the NL team. "Once he serves his suspension, he's paid his penalty and he's just like every other player."

NL All-Star Vote Leaders (OF)
Player	Votes
Ryan Braun	908,745
Raul Ibanez	817,849
Alfonso Soriano	775,319
Carlos Beltran	741,875
Manny Ramirez	635,530
Mike Cameron	533,923
Shane Victorino	517,760
Corey Hart	475,809
Results as of June 1

Of course, Manuel also wants to return to the Series -- and realizes that having Ramirez in the NL lineup, hitting behind Albert Pujols, would help the Phillies' chances of gaining the home-field edge. Never mind that little, old steroids deal, right there, Charlie?

Baseball always has taken a public pounding on steroids because of its sacred dependence on numbers as a measuring stick. That is why the known juicers of the Steroids Era should be separated in history -- if not by Selig, then by his successor -- from star sluggers of the cleaner eras. The all-time record should not belong to Barry Bonds. It belongs to Henry Aaron, whose 755 homers were achieved cleanly. Whether by asterisk or a different wing in Cooperstown, hopefully one with dark, sinister lighting, the cheaters must be grouped together in their infamy.

Too bad the same tough standards aren't applied to other sports. When an NFL player is busted for steroids, even a star such as Shawne Merriman, the public generally ho-hums it as the not-so-shocking product of a violent sport. And if there was a steroids epidemic in pro basketball, would anyone care? LeBron James and his monster-truck body might be the subject of suspicion if he was a baseball player, but in the NBA, it's not given a second thought. And why is there no outrage about the NHL, whose drug policy doesn't permit testing for PEDs during the playoffs and offseason? How do we know a bunch of Detroit Red Wings haven't been juicing for weeks?

At least there were some protests over the remarks of race-car driver Danica Patrick, who suggested in a Sports Illustrated interview with Dan Patrick -- no relation -- that she would take performance-enhancing drugs if she knew she wouldn't be caught.

Dan: "If you could take a performance-enhancing drug and not get caught, would you do it if it allowed you to win Indy?"

Danica: "Well, then it's not cheating, is it? If nobody finds out?"

Dan: "So you would do it?"

Danica: "Yeah, it would be like finding a gray area. In motor sports, we work in the gray areas a lot. You're trying to find where the holes are in the rule book."

Tuesday, Danica apologized in USA Today, blaming Dan for his flippant way of conducting interviews. "The whole interview with Dan, and every other interview I've ever done with Dan, the questioning comes from left field. It was just a joke and I really apologize if it came across any other way," she said. "It was a bad joke. There is a lot of sensitivity in our culture about [performance-enhancing drugs]. With all the baseball stuff, I've followed it and this is a real problem. It's a shame kids think they have to do this to get ahead. It's very dangerous. ... It's absolutely not what I'm about. I've learned my lesson on what I should be joking about."

I'm very glad she stepped forward and apologized. As U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart told SI, "We're glad she apologized, admitting that she made a terrible mistake, and we accept that. But it's clear that cheating, whether you get caught or not, is wrong. And if left unchecked, the temptations to do it are high, which is why you need to have the most effective policies in place to stop the threat of cheating."

You also need the most powerful form of public condemnation. Allowing Manny Ramirez anywhere near the All-Star Game, even with a ticket, is not our idea of an appropriate message. Vote no, America.

Or else we're a country without a conscience.