Ramirez fails drug test for final time

Manny Ramirez chose to retire from professional baseball on Friday, rather than appeal against or face the consequences of a second failed drug test in three seasons. This revelation is another black mark against baseball, which is becoming ever-increasingly renowned for drug use. Terry Francona believes that this behavior has always happened, but often been ignored: “Our game is being penalized for – I don’t know if ‘putting our heads in the sand’ is the right words – for a little while,” Francona said. “It’s never going to be fair to everybody. And we’re paying the price for what happened, in general. That’s a shame.” “It’s sad that we keep trying to put this behind us, this era that they talk about, and it just keeps resurfacing – the trials coming up, you have what happened with Manny and, you know, it’s sad because you want the game to be clean,” Jo Giraldi, the Yankee manager added. With professional sportsmen held in such high-esteem in our society, it’s important that we work to stamp out this sort of thing. While baseball has been slightly behind the NFL in implementing more severe measures, they certainly now seem to be catching up. Manny failed a drug test back in 2008, and suffered a 50 game ban in the 2009 season as punishment. With this second violation he was facing a 100 game ban – with this in mind and at the age of 38, he has decided to walk away from the game rather than watch his team-mates from the stands for the next 100 league games. The 12-time All-Star finished his career with 555 home runs and a .312 batting average, but through his own stupidity will now be remembered for all the wrong reasons.]]>