Manny's Back

July 3rd was the day that Dodger fans have had etched on their brains for 50 games now - the day that Manny Ramirez would finally return from suspension and hopefully pick up right where he left off.

Well, the Dodgers won tonight but Manny had very little to do with it.

The media's been out in full force for this return for days but especially over the past day or so. Lots of reporters that are full of piss and vinegar that Manny hasn't been strung up by his toes by fans across the globe. There's a lot of arguments for and against Manny right now with a lot of good points on both sides.

But there's something that I took away from them that kinda made me realize why I, personally, haven't been as upset about the situation as some others have.

I read someone saying that the fans are just too overexposed to the situation by this point. Bonds, A-Rod, Clemens, McGwire... you name it, we've seen their names and reputations and records dragged through the mud.

At some point, don't we all just become a little bit numb to it?

The Clemens one is the one that probably did me in. I've been a huge Clemens fan for his entire career. At one point in my childhood, I proudly held over a hundred Clemens baseball cards in my collection and proclaimed him to be one of my favorite players [as a non-Dodger, that was saying something.]

So, when a childhood hero is busted for Performance Enhancing Drugs, am I going to be affected as much when someone that I probably REALLY only like because I met him on my wedding day is?

The A-Rod one stings a little too because he was supposed to be clean. He was the guy who was going to "save" the record books from the taint of Barry Bonds. But in the end, all he did was prove Jose Canseco right... again.

In the end, it's starting to become more and more apparent that just about every high profile player from that period of time were "influenced" in some fashion. Can we hate them all? I guess but at some point, you have to start to wonder if there's a point to that.

He got caught, he did his time, he quasi-admits to it...

I guess that's good enough... sorta. Everyone deserves a second chance and all that jazz, right?

Right?