Who will be left standing?
Some of the greatest players of this era have either been tainted by being named in the Mitchell Report or by getting suspended for violating baseball's drug policy.
Manny Ramírez, one of the greatest hitters to wear a uniform, joins Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Miguel Tejada . . . and on and on . . . as tarnished after Major League Baseball suspended the Dodgers slugger for 50 games yesterday for violating the drug policy.
Who's left? Albert Pujols? He's a tremendous player off to an incredible start. He's always answering questions about whether he has used performance-enhancing drugs and he's always denied it. Nobody wants to believe Pujols is using performance-enhancers, but nobody thought this of A-Rod and Manny, either.
How dumb do you have to be to get caught? A detailed list of every banned substance is distributed to every player, every agent, and discussed at every spring training site by the Major League Baseball Players Association.
And every team informs players - many times over - that anything taken by prescription or over-the-counter needs to be checked by the team's trainer or medical staff.
That this happened to Ramírez should not come as a shock. When the Red Sox traveled to Japan last year, traveling secretary Jack McCormick told players there was a 200-pound limit on personal belongings, to which Ramírez responded, "But I weigh over 200 pounds."
Will baseball ever dig itself out of this?
The economy is bad, people seem to be staying away from ballparks, television ratings are down, and now this. The central part of the Dodgers' marketing campaign is Ramírez. The left-field section of Dodger Stadium is promoted as "Mannywood," and there are Manny wigs, Manny T-shirts, and he is adored by Dodgers fans.
Not even Dr. Charles Steinberg, the marketing genius hired by the Dodgers away from the Red Sox, can put a positive spin on this. What are those Mannyiacs thinking now? What's Frank McCourt, the Boston native and owner of the Dodgers who wants a championship so badly, feeling right now?
The Dodgers were 21-8 before Ramírez's suspension, looking to leave opponents in the National League West in the dust.
Ramírez, 36, will forfeit nearly $7.7 million of his $25 million salary because of the suspension.
For all the crazy and quirky things Ramírez has done, he has never been associated with performance-enhancing drugs.
That possibility was brought to light by Jose Canseco, who said at a book signing in Florida last month he would bet Ramírez was one of the 104 players who tested positive in baseball's allegedly anonymous survey program in 2003. Alex Rodriguez is the only player known to be on that list, although it is unknown how A-Rod's name was leaked to the media.
Asked yesterday on ESPN Radio in Chicago how many players were using during the "Steroid Era," Canseco raised his previous estimate of 80 percent to "100."
"What you have to look at is this - of the last 15 MVPs, you have to find one that was not using steroids," Canseco said. "That's the way I look at it. The numbers are really starting to add up and make sense. Major League Baseball and the Players Association got me out of this game for this issue. Everyone else, for lack of a better word, I got [expletive] . . . everyone else got paid and got multiyear deals. If you got rid of all the players that are using steroids there'd be no game left and Major League Baseball started realizing this."
When Canseco speaks now, you have to listen. He's been right about everybody - except in his defense of his buddy Clemens.
Ramírez's story about what he ingested is very sketchy. He said he went to a physician to get treatment for a personal health issue and the doctor gave him a prescription. The Globe learned the prescription was for a female fertility drug, which steroid users take to control their natural testosterone levels. The drug is also used as a sexual enhancer, but why didn't Ramírez take Viagra or Cialis?
The matter of seeing a personal physician also sounds suspicious. One physician familiar with major league teams and ballplayers said when a team is paying a player $25 million a season, the team monitors the player's every movement. A source close to Dodgers management said Ramírez's violation occurred during the offseason, before he re-signed with the team.
Ramírez would have skated into the Hall of Fame, but there are writers who won't vote for steroid users. Some take it case by case. Some believe performance-enhancing drugs were rampant, making the playing field level.
Bonds and Clemens were surefire Cooperstown enshrinees before they allegedly started using drugs. Ramírez is certainly in that boat.
It's a shame. All the great players mentioned never needed anything but their ability. They were incredible athletes who played with style, grace, and dominance. Somewhere along the way, ego, greed, and foremost, stupidity, got in the way of respect for themselves and respect for the game that gave them their riches.
Nick Cafardo can be reached at cafardo@globe.com. 
