Ramirez, who also failed a test in 2009, skipped the second penalty and went right to the third. It seemed to be a self-imposed death sentence or a tacit acknowledgement that he simply could not play without banned drugs. So much for that.
Ramirez is back now, and by the end of the week will report to the Oakland Athletics. He signed a minor league contract for $500,000 on Monday, and he can play in spring training before serving a 50-game suspension.
Fifty games? What happened to 100? When a fugitive skips town, shouldn’t the same punishment apply if he tries to come back? Not in the case of Ramirez. He was reinstated last December when the union persuaded Major League Baseball to reduce his sentence because Ramirez had missed almost all of 2011.
For baseball, it was a reasonable compromise. If Ramirez had simply taken the ban last April, he would have been free to play by the end of July. Ramirez’s retirement was typical of his rash and nutty decision-making, and baseball decided not to penalize him for that.
But why show him any leniency at all? It is one thing to weather the steroid cloud over Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun, the National League’s reigning most valuable player, who is still awaiting a ruling on whether he must serve a 50-game ban for a positive test last October. Braun, at least, is an elite player with an otherwise spotless history.
Ramirez, who will be 40 by the time he can play again, is a ghostly reminder of a tainted era with a long history of roguish behavior. Terry Francona, his nice-guy manager in Boston, once said this to Peter Gammons, ‘‘Manny Ramirez is the worst human being I’ve ever met.’’ That might say it all.
Ramirez was here last spring with the Tampa Bay Rays, who were counting on him to bat cleanup. Ramirez hit well in exhibitions and was popular in the clubhouse, asking to take long bus trips, helping young players, working hard and exuding joy.
