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Whatever ‘Man-Ram’ did, it wasn’t good

PHILADELPHIA — Maybe Manny Ramirez was hoping for a boy. A little righthanded power bat. With dreadlocks. A chip off the ol’ block. How cute.

Or maybe he wanted a little girl. Dress her up in a little pink Dodgers uniform—until, of course, he quit on that team, the way he did the one in Boston.

This is the conclusion we draw after Ramirez was suspended for violating baseball’s policy against performance-enhancing drugs on Thursday:

Manny was trying to get pregnant.

Why else would he have been taking a drug used to treat infertility in women?

He couldn’t have been taking human chorionic gonadotropinn (HCG) because he had issues in the bedroom or because his doctor thought he would benefit medically from a little extra testosterone.

Had those been the reasons, Ramirez could have petitioned Major League Baseball for a therapeutic-use exemption. MLB handed out 108 of those puppies last season—and that was just for players looking to use stimulants such as Ritalin or Adderall to treat attention-deficit disorder.

Surely, Ramirez would have received an exemption if he could have shown a legitimate medical need for a drug that increases testosterone production.

But he never asked for an exemption.

And there’s more reason to believe he was up to something shady in taking HCG.

Look at how he acquired the stuff, allegedly through a prescription from a doctor in Miami.

Think about that for a second. Here’s Manny Ramirez, one of the greatest hitters ever, a star for one of the most prestigious and resourceful sports franchises in the world, and he chooses to go through an outside doctor for an alleged medical problem instead of using the Dodgers’ vast stable of medical resources?

Strange.

Ramirez wasn’t talking Thursday. All he said, through a carefully worded statement, was that a doctor gave him medication for “a personal health issue.” He did not realize the medication was on baseball’s list of banned performance-enhancers. And he was sorry.

Sorry for what?

That he broke a trust with his team and with the fans?

Or sorry that he got caught?

Methinks the latter.

Ramirez knows he did something wrong, and here’s how we know it: He didn’t appeal his suspension. If he believed he was wronged by some doctor or took something in error, wouldn’t he be fighting this suspension as vigorously as he swings at fat fastballs? Wouldn’t he be trying to clear his name and protect his Hall of Fame legacy?

Where’s Ramirez’s outrage? Where’s his fight? He seems resigned to it all. “Uh, you got me.

Manny wasn’t trying to get pregnant using this stuff. Maybe he was cheating and the evidence finally tumbled down upon him, just as it did on Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Roger Clemens and others whose accomplishments forever will be viewed through a tainted prism.

All those stories about how hard Ramirez worked to become the hitter he is have now lost their luster. It’s all different for him now. He was a one-man wrecking crew with the Dodgers last season and in his first 27 games this season. But it is now reasonable to ask: How much was him?

He was hailed as a great veteran leader for a young and talented Dodgers team, but even that is a lot of bunk now. How could a leader, one with so much talent, jeopardize his legacy with such selfish stupidity? He has let down his teammates and the organization that built a marketing campaign around him.

The Dodgers are paying Ramirez $25 million this season, but the 50-game suspension will cost him $7.65 million of that.

Ramirez is such a big name that his suspension drew a comment from the White House. “A great embarrassment to Major League Baseball,” spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

While we agree that there is a level of embarrassment that comes with the best player on baseball’s best team being suspended for using a performance-enhancing substance, there is something potentially heartening about it all: Another star has been sullied, another career tainted. There’s another cautionary tale out there to scare players straight—if they’re listening.