The New Dynasty 2009-

It has been nearly a decade since the end of the last great time period of baseball. It was in the form of a Dynasty.

The title belonged to the New York Yankees, a mixture of veteran leadership and young talent, lead by Joe Torre. Now, while numbers can't be ignored, the magic of baseball shoudn't be forgotten.

Statistics tell you everything you would want to know about a certain player's skill on the field. But it can't explain how one error haunted a man for 23 years, or how perfect of a scenario it was while we watched a ball simply fall just beyond the infield to win a game played in October. It is moments like these that we are prone to remember, and every once in a while a story emerges that seems like it could have been written in a book that you read as a kid.

Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games, due to testing positive for banned substances. Ramirez has gone from hero, champion, and future Hall of Famer to, well, another statistic. The steroid era has put an everlasting image on the game and the records set or broken in the time frame.

People are now wondering if it will ever regain the same sense of pride, passion, and magic that made this game so great. While statistics would say my prediction is a long shot, I choose to believe it may be possible.

Even though the loss of Ramirez weighs hard on the Dodgers, it hasn't stopped them from performing on the field. They stand at the top of both the National, and American Leagues with a record of 24-12. The season is long, and there will definitely be a significant part of Ramirez' suspension that the club will miss his bat dearly. After all, that bat made him stick around in Boston a couple years past his welcome with upper management. 

There is no one in baseball that would deny that Manny is one of the great characters in the class that people group as "superstars." It can be argued that there were as many people that rooted against Ramirez, than for him. Now that Ramirez is placed in with the names of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and more stars that are linked to performing enhancing drugs, it is without a doubt that a good number of those fans have now joined the minority of non-Ramirez supporters.

Many would say Ramirez will not come close to the numbers he reached when being traded to the Dodgers last summer, even if he had the preparation of the 50 games he was suspended for. So while the odds are against him for attaining those kinds of numbers when he returns, people should remember that he debuted in the big leagues at the age of 21, what are the odds of that?

It is no secret Ramirez played for the name on the back of his jersey rather than the front of it. When asked during spring training what his goals were he said he had no goals, and the ones he mentioned later had little or nothing to do with baseball. Nothing out of the ordinary, just another great player whose accolades have already been discounted, due to coming up positive is what Ramirez has become.

But this is were the game of baseball reminds people that the game is indeed bigger than any player, group of players, or players in general. Think about it, even when players took strike, and there was no World Series, baseball was still a great game.

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