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No known cheaters were elected to MLB All-Star Game
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AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
The people have spoken. The votes have been tabulated. After months of speculation, baseball fans did the right thing and did not vote any known cheaters into the All-Star Game.
With the February revelation that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for PEDs in 2003 after denying ever using on “60 Minutes” several months earlier, his 180 was not treated kindly by the fans. Evan Longoria, of the small-market Tampa Bay Rays, got the nod over the player who is supposedly going to surpass Barry Bonds as the all-time home run leader before he finishes his career.
Manny Ramirez returned to action last Friday after serving a 50-game suspension for using a banned substance. He violated the league's drug policy with a woman’s fertility drug, human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG. HCG is used by steroid users to regulate their testosterone levels after coming off a steroid cycle. Like Rodriguez, he was not deemed an All-Star by the fans after being as high as the fourth vote-getter in late May. The top three outfield vote getters were elected starters.
The fans do care whether their heroes are playing by the rules. If the fans wanted to be entertained, as Bonds famously said, then Rodriguez and Ramirez would have been elected All-Stars so that they could entertain.
Apparently, the managers making the decisions for the reserves do not share in the fans' new-found integrity. While Rodriguez and Ramirez were both kept off their respective league rosters, Miguel Tejada was selected by National League manager Charlie Manuel. Tejada was linked to PEDs in the Mitchell Report with two copies of checks in the amount of $3,100 and $3,200 dated March 2003 provided by former teammate Adam Piatt. Piatt said he never saw Tejada use the drugs. In March of this year, Tejada received a sentence of a one-year probation for misleading Congress about the use of PEDs in 2005.
Is rewarding a questionable character the right thing for the manager to do? The fans don’t think so with their voting pattern. Conspiracy theorists can easily speculate that someone from Milwaukee directed the managers not to select either Rodriguez or Ramirez as reserves to avoid any potential media backlash. Per the course, they failed to expand that edict to anyone previously linked to PEDs. Look for All-Star selection changes in the near future; it’s the right thing to do to salvage the sport.
To see the All-Star rosters, click here.
National Sports Examiner Paula Duffy covered the return of Manny Ramirez here.
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