ESPN Reports Manny Ramirez To Be Suspended 50 Games for Positive Test

ESPN reports that OF Manny Ramirez will be suspended 50 games for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs.

Much to the shock of no one, Ramirez suspension comes while the Dodgers are off to the hottest home start in baseball history. Ramirez, who was lauded as critical to the Dodgers' success last year, will now be away from his team until near the All-Star break.

Scott Boras, Ramirez agent, says that this was not a positive steroid test (wink, wink), but that it was for a prescription drug to treat an unidentified medical condition.

I do believe that steroids are available by prescription.

Really, though, if that is true, the players union has failed one of the game's superstars. Like Philadelphia Phillies pitcher JC Romero, who was suspended for 50 games for using an over the counter product he purchased at GNC, Manny receives no help from the union for something they should have been giving him advice about.

I do not like Manny Ramirez.

But this seems wrong to me.

UPDATE:

This from the ESPN story:

"Two sources told ESPN's T.J. Quinn and Mark Fainaru-Wada that the drug used by Ramirez is HCG -- human chorionic gonadotropin. HCG is a women's fertility drug typically used by steroid users to restart their body's natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle. It is similar to Clomid, the drug Bonds, Giambi and others used as clients of BALCO."

Never mind, he's guilty, hang him. Jerk.