Manny Ramirez, the Los Angeles Dodgers’ slugger and left fielder will be back in the lineup tonight against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park. This is news because Manny has been forced to miss the last 50 games due to a violation of the MLB’s drug policy. Ramirez was caught taking a banned substance, specifically a women’s drug known to be taken by athletes ending a period of steroid use. He has not yet been caught using steroids though, to be clear.

The Dodger’s slugger bats third in the potent lineup which leads all of baseball with the best record in the bigs. Manny comes into tonights game with 533 career homeruns, 17th on the all-time list.

There are many positions on the steroid issue, and I for one am ashamed the game has been tainted by it. Having said that, since the era is tainted with performance enhancing drugs I don’t think you can hold players out of the hall of fame because it must be the case that currently there are players in the hall that have not and will not be caught using, even though they did. So in my view, holding out players you did catch shouldn’t make a difference. I don’t think ‘well you got caught’ should be the tag line to hall eligibility.

I will be watching Manny tonight, but then again I watch most all Dodger games. I hate to say that it has become so widespread a problem, steroids that is, that I don’t really care anymore. I’d just like to see the sport cleaned up and the issue to go away.