A week after the Los Angeles Dodgers began promoting “Mannywood” as part of a marketing drive behind their All-Star outfielder, Manny Ramirez got banned for almost one third of the season.
Major League Baseball yesterday suspended Ramirez for violating its drugs rules, taking the Dodgers’ star player out of the next 50 games and putting the skids on a sales campaign centered on the 36-year-old.
“It’s everybody’s nightmare,” said Robert Leffler, owner of sports advertising firm The Leffler Agency, in a phone interview. “You can’t market someone who is suspended.”
“Mannywood,” located in two sections behind his position in left field, offers seats sold in pairs with T-shirts thrown in for $99 to match Ramirez’s jersey number. A “Manny Ramirez Bobblehead” giveaway promotion was scheduled for the July 22 game against Cincinnati.
Dodgers spokesman Josh Rawitch didn’t respond to an e-mail or phone call inquiring whether the promotions would continue.
“You have to lay low,” added Leffler, speaking from Baltimore, about the marketing plan. “You can’t do things contradictory to good taste.”
Dodgers manager Joe Torre is more concerned about maintaining the best record in baseball this season without his marquee player. Torre said he was “disappointed” when owner Frank McCourt told him the news shortly after the team had recorded another win.
‘Saddened’
“Someone punched a hole in the balloon,” Torre said during a televised news conference yesterday. “A lot of fans are saddened, not angry, just saddened.”
Ramirez, who can practice with the Dodgers during his suspension, is allowed to return July 3 after giving up $7.7 million of his $25 million contract.
He said the drug wasn’t a steroid and that he has passed “about 15” drug tests during the past five seasons. The league declined to identify the substance.
“Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue,” Ramirez said in a statement released by the baseball player’s union. “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.”
ESPN quoted two unidentified people as saying Ramirez failed a test for human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG, a female fertility drug that also can be taken by steroid users to restart the production of testosterone. It is on the banned list of the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA.
Permission
If Ramirez had a legitimate medical reason to take the substance, he should have sought permission, according to Gary Wadler, who chairs WADA’s banned substances list.
“This is a drug that is frequently seen in the world of steroid abuse,” Wadler said in an interview.
Ramirez’s suspension is the latest embarrassment for baseball involving a superstar player connected to drugs.
Alex Rodriguez, a three-time Most Valuable Player, is accused in a book, “A-Rod,” of using steroids since high school and being tied to human-growth hormone since joining the New York Yankees in 2004. After earlier reports that he flunked a steroid test, Rodriguez acknowledged he used the muscle- building drugs from 2001 to 2003.
Apology
Ramirez, a 12-time All-Star, is the highest-profile player to be banned for 50 games under the drug policy that was enacted in November 2005. The penalty for performance-enhancing drug use is 50 games for a first offense, 100 games for repeat offenders and a lifetime ban for a third transgression.
Ramirez, who had never previously tested positive for banned drugs, apologized to McCourt and his wife, Jamie, Torre and the team’s fans.
“In Manny’s case, he did take responsibility and certainly caught us all by surprise,” Torre said. “I hope I’m always surprised. I want to believe in the players. Maybe I’m naïve but I choose to be that way.”
The Dodgers hold the sport’s best record, including an unprecedented 13 consecutive home wins to start the season that ended with last night’s defeat to the Washington Nationals.
The Dodgers’ 21-9 record is the best in baseball, while Ramirez is batting .348 with six home runs and 20 runs batted in this season.
New Deal
Ramirez signed a two-year contract with the Dodgers on March 5, ending four months of negotiations, and will earn $20 million in 2010. He helped the Dodgers win the National League West Division last season after joining from the Boston Red Sox at the July 31 trade deadline.
Ramirez batted .396, with 17 home runs and 53 runs batted in during 53 regular-season games with the Dodgers, who made their first NL Championship Series appearance since 1988 after sweeping the Chicago Cubs in the first round of postseason play.
He was named Most Valuable Player of the 2004 World Series, helping the Red Sox win their first championship since 1918.
“It’s obviously a distraction and a void in our clubhouse and on the field,” Torre said. “We still continue to need Manny. This is a man’s game. We have to go out there and perform without him.”