We Endorse the "Vote For Manny" Blog

Satire is good.

Through humor, eyes are pried wide open. Satire promotes inquiry. It can even be a catalyst for change. When we discuss "change" it is not in the political context of "Change we can believe in"......no, the change we have in mind is not some ubiquitous slogan which was put through market research groups, approved, and printed in mass.

No, the change some of us are looking for is not in the abstract but the concrete......wet concrete......and to mix our metaphors we'll just say, the sloppy sort of wet concrete mess you might find in the shorts of Commissioner Bud Selig as the 2009 All star game approaches. Hard ball fans: we bring to your awareness.....

www.voteformanny.blogspot.com

A clever blog by a NY fan/writer/polemicist whose purpose is to promote the selection of Manny Ramirez INTO the All Star game via fan vote......but not for the reasons you think. This venture is strictly a means to an end for we, the fans of the game.

The idea: to force Bud Selig's hand in having to acknowledge and then address the possibility of a positive testing player (Performance Enhancing Drugs) making the all-star team. As San Diegans we saw a similar situation and the firestorm that ensued back in '05 when Shawne Merriman made the Pro Bowl after having served a 4 game steroid suspension. We are presented with a fantastic opportunity sport fans. Do not let the possibility of that Dread-head douche occupying left field in Busch Stadium deter you from forcing the issue.

There are those that will argue that voting for Manny, who is currently running fourth in the voting, will only prevent a more deserving player from earning a spot:

Raul has been solid. You need not worry. Mr. Selig will do the right thing.

Sorry. Sometimes you must destroy something beautiful to rebuild it correctly. Without pain there can not be gain. Insert any other metaphor you'd like but the bottom line is that the drug issue must be confronted on a national platform and more likely than not Raul Ibanez would thank you for providing him a nice little vacation during the middle of an arduous season.

There are those that will argue that this sort of measure will only serve to further damage the image of MLB:

C.J. has tarnished his own image. Edit twice...publish once my friend.

See previous argument. MLB already has two black eyes and they've been achieved under the stewardship of Commissioner Selig. This could be an opportunity for Bud to do the right thing by implementing a policy shift that illustrates an act of good faith for MLB's fans (i.e. banning Manny and all future positive testers from All-Star games and to take it a step further---ban these players from eligibility for individual season awards----this would show that he takes the PED issue seriously).

Lastly there are those who just don't quite understand the literary device of satire....

No....insanity is responding to things you disagree with at 3:30 AM

....or you don't know how to read and instead resort to inferences based on the titles of blogs you look at-- and please notice that we use the words "look at" and not "read". Hopefully one day you'll get it and when you do, "it'll be the most beautiful day of your life." A Durdian moment to be sure.

Vote Manny in so that Bud can vote him out. Exact some Change We Can Believe In: Vote on-line for Manny Ramirez and visit the blog created in his "honor". Vote For Manny Blog

Los Angeles Dodgers Website for Direct Voting and Ballot Box Stuffing.

**Comments courtesy of nit wits visiting the Vote For Manny Blog.

From Bennifer to Mannywood

I took time out to think yesterday.

Yes. Between strategy sessions for boosting Jessica Alba's Thighnal Four possibilities I began to think about something other than the Memphis Tigers-like thrashing Ms. Alba was being served in the 2009 Hot Ladies Tournament. Let us be candid....while the hot ladies are good sport we needed something with, I don't know, a little more balls....

Like a spider monkey cavorting down the avenues of my mind came the following: Bennifer-Brangelina- TomKat -BenJen-Billary......oh please stop, mind..... the dreaded celebrity super-couple uni-name. I curse that Masshole Ben Affleck and J-Lo for ever opening the door to overexposed combo names..... but the real question is why on Earth would that inane topic be blighting my mind?

Which brings us full circle to sports and the current union of names: Manny Ramirez and Hollywood went forth, fornicated and left us with the dirty afterbirth known as: Mannywood.

I thought of the idiocy of this combo-name in great detail yesterday: great detail constituted 1 minute and 29 seconds where my thought's exclamation point was a resounding, "Fuck'n' Hell!". Does everything need to be reduced to a cute little name? Apparently so. Such a creative lot are we. But what I didn't realize was that the cutsie name was actually a LAtrine promotion. When did I find this out? Well today of course.....

Manny Ramirez was suspended for a whopping 50 games for steroids! Another fraud exposed.

I don't think Manny could get wood.....hence the female fertility drug.... ahhh, the side effects of steroids.

According to ESPN 800 Mannywood is the left field section where Jag-offs can purchase an overpriced ticket ($99--clever) and a Manny T-shirt. What to do Los Angeles, now that your Pajama wearing LF is on the rack trying to get his testicles to return to normal without using a banned female fertility drug? The Los Angeles Times reported and we copied and pasted:

Ramirez tested positive during spring training for "a banned performance-enhancing substance that is not technically an anabolic steroid," according to a source not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

The substance, identified by the source as human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), could legitimately be prescribed for a man who does not naturally produce enough testosterone, according to a high-ranking sports doping authority. But HCG often is used as an antidote to diminished testosterone levels at the end of a cycle of steroid treatments, said BALCO founder and convicted steroid dealer Victor Conte.

HCG is one of dozens of substances prohibited under baseball's drug policy. Players can call a hotline to check on the legality of any substances, and they can obtain a therapeutic use exemption for any legitimate medical use of a banned substance.

"This is failing more than a drug test," Conte said. "This is failing an IQ test.

Well....my friend Boston (from Boston) always said, "Manny's a fucking moron!". That was even when the Sox were winning a 2007 World Series.

The truly sad part of this entire ordeal is not that one more hero of our generation* has fallen, disgracing himself and our National Pastime but that, absent Manny Ramirez, the Padres STILL don't have a chance at the division!!

What's up with Edwin Moreno? That guy was clearly decomposing at the bottom of the dumpster that Kevin Towers found him in.

*The greatest right handed hitter in the game....it's not quite Pujols yet....very close though.....did you know that Albert Pujols carries a Louis Vitton man purse? Saw it with my own two eyes as he walked through the Gaslamp in 2006. Es La Verdad.)

159 Mas...am I really going to do this?

Dodgers 5 Padres 2

Game 3 Observations:

• Manny's hair is beyond comment

• David Eckstein had an awesome 10 pitch at-bat in the 1st. The talk of game 1 was DE's sac bunt in the 1st. These seem like trivial things to get excited over...so I won't. But they are pleasant things to see and hopefully represent a sea change.

• Walter Silva was lucky to give up only 2 runs. We're in trouble with him as our #3.

• In addition to speed, Evereth Cabrera has a hose.

• Kouz needs to show up in April or it'll be a hell of a hole we're diggin' ourselves out of.

• Mujica and De la Cruz had live looking arms....so we've got that goin' for the pen.

• Steve Quis asked Manny stupid questions during the Postgame. How dare you accuse Manny of having been in a "funk".

• Baseball is hard to blog....too quick a turn around time between games so here's my Opening Day part II....

I really should skip the remainder of Peavy's starts...this decade.

I missed all of the pregame festivities. My cheap ticket was nullified by the pregame bar tab. I too was excited to see a bunt in the first-curse thy moneyball of '08. The Padres have lost 9 consecutive games I have attended including the sweep in the Bronx last June. Jake Peavy has lost the previous 5 times I've seen him pitch. San Diego should be embarrassed by the shear number of LA caps in the stands and the pathetic absence of SD caps. Is it any wonder San Diego is labeled as a joke of a sports town. One man's opinion.

Editor's Note:
Sure the team isn't going to be great...err...good this season. And I would have encouraged people to stay home had we not seen a change in the status quo....but with Moorad on board and the number of price accommodations we've seen thus far...well I think it is a reasonable olive branch until things get turned around. I can wait until the draft before I begin to organize boycotts.

In summation: 5 for$5 is awesome and Dodger fans are far too plentiful (droves of Dickies in The Bark on Monday)