Video Courtesy of ESPN.com

Baseball received another black eye today as it was reported that Manny Ramirez has been suspended for 50 games for failing a drug test.

In a statement Manny said:

Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I’ve taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons. I want to apologize to Mr. McCourt, Mrs. McCourt, Mr. Torre, my teammates, the Dodger organization, and to the Dodger fans. LA is a special place to me and I know everybody is disappointed. So am I. I’m sorry about this whole situation.

My Initial Thoughts:
1. I was not shocked but a little surprised.

2. I wonder what this will do to his Hall of Fame chances. Imagine the type of speech Manny would give? That would be great.

3. This would have been a nightmare for the New York Mets had they paid a large amount of money to bring him to New York.

4. I will admit, I wanted the Mets to sign Manny in the off season and I still want him now. Why? Because a 112 games of Manny Ramirez is still better then 162 games of Daniel Murphy / Gary Sheffield / Fernando Tatis.