If you are one of the Manny apologists (a close cousin to the Clemens apologists, the Bonds apologists, ARod’s, etc.), once you finish reading this from uber-detectives TJ Quinn and Mark Fainaru-Wada, you’ll realize there was more to Manny than all natural talent:
Ultimately, Ramirez was brought down by his own private medical records — records that the Major League Baseball Players’ Association turned over on his behalf, as required under the sport’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. The test came back showing elevated levels of testosterone. Every individual naturally produces testosterone and a substance called epitestosterone, typically at a ratio of 1:1. In Major League Baseball, if the ratio comes in at 4:1 during testing, a player is flagged. In Ramirez’s case, his ratio was between 4:1 and 10:1, according to one source.
The story of how Manny Ramirez was nabbed by baseball’s drug-testing policy is rooted as much in the language of the collective bargaining agreement as it is in the fact that the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ slugger had synthetic testosterone in his body when he was tested this past spring.
The synthetic testosterone in Ramirez’s body could not have come from the hCG, according to doping experts, and so suddenly Ramirez had two drugs to answer for. Worse still for the ballplayer, MLB now had a document showing he had been prescribed a banned substance. This was iron-clad evidence that could secure a 50-game suspension.
