The manager of the Dodgers, Joe Torre welcomed the return of his prized and controversial player Manny Ramirez. In an interview at his charity golf tournament at the Trump National Golf Club in Westchester on Monday, Torre said that players who were tainted with steroid use can still be great players. He admitted that Ramirez is not comfortable talking about his suspension just like what he did in his previous press conference. He’s a shy person according to Torre but Manny is ready to do it again in New York.

Joe Torre disagreed when asked if Ramirez’ return could be considered as glorifying the steroid use of his player. He doesn’t want to send a wrong a message to the fans especially the youngsters. “Let’s put it this way: He’s admitting he did wrong and he got suspended. He’s not crying ‘foul’ in any way,” he said. “But this is where we are, anymore, as a society. It doesn’t matter, if it’s an attention-getter, whether it’s a positive, or a negative thing. It gets your attention. The message you don’t want to send is, what he did is okay, and have the youngsters take that and think its okay. I think that’s wrong,” Torre added.

when asked on what would be his stand on future players who will be putting incredible home run numbers, Torre said that he would not automatically assume that the player used some kind of performance enhancing drugs or steroids. For him it is not impossible for a player to have great performance in any season. “We’ve seen players hit 10 home runs, 15 home runs, all of a sudden, they’re hitting 30 or 40.” “I mean, that’s suspicious. But I think if you see somebody who’s a good-size guy, and he’s got all the mechanics that seem to work, yeah, I can see myself believing that this guy legitimately does that,” he said. Torre also believes that we should not question every single thing that happens in every game. People may be suspicious but they should not think that these players are on steroids.

Meanwhile, sports writer Jason Fanelli said that the current situation in baseball is not actually about the steroid era. For him it was the thing of the past and baseball is now on a new era, the Acceptance Age. If the case of other baseball legends like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro did not give them another chance to comeback in the league, it is now different with Ramirez. Fenelli said that Ramirez was welcomed back to the league with open arms, the fans of LA greeting him as if he were the Baseball Messiah. He thought that the open arms treatment would be limited only to Los Angeles but he was wrong. When Manny played against the Mets, he was cheered as if there was a new milestone or a player getting the 300 mark.

“I know he’s a great talent, and I would understand if he was coming back from injury, but all of this hoopla for a return from a steroids suspension proves one thing: The media has accepted steroids. The fans have accepted steroids. Worst of all, through their inaction, Major League Baseball has accepted steroids,” Fenelli said.

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