OUR FANHOUSE TOOLBAR INTEGRATES THE LATEST SPORTS NEWS INTO YOUR WEB BROWSER AND INSTALLS IN SECONDS.
YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE TOOLBAR HERE.

MLB

Join the All-Star Sham: Vote for Manny

Posted Jun 30, 2009 9:45PM By David Whitley (RSS feed)

Filed Under: MLB All-Star Game, MLB PEDs

Text SizeAAA
Michael Jackson believes Manny Ramirez should be in the All-Star Game. So does Bud Selig, Roger Clemens, Ted Kennedy and Ramirez himself.

I know because they all voted for Manny. I actually cast their ballots, but that doesn't make a difference to Major League Baseball.

Dead or alive, animal or vegetable, saint or sinner, MLB just wants your vote. In keeping with baseball tradition, it is now allowing fans to cheat like their real-life heroes.

By cheat, I mean stuff the Internet All-Star ballot box. Fans are supposed to be limited to 25 votes, which is pretty shady to begin with. And I say that as a Floridian who cast three ballots for George W. Bush and one for Ralph Nader in 2000.

That election looks airtight compared to what's happening at MLB.com. After you vote, simply create another e-mail address and you can cast 25 more votes.

It makes a mockery of the mockery that All-Star voting has long been. It also makes Ramirez the candidate most deserving of your support.

Baseball's most recognizable drug cheat is coming off a 50-game suspension. His presence at the July 14 game would be an embarrassment. Nobody deserves to squirm more than Bud Selig and the boys who oversaw the Steroid Era and the wild expansion of bogus balloting.

In the old days fans had to poke holes in paper ballots and mail them in or drop them by the nearest stadium. Now all they have to do is click onto MLB.com and type in their e-mail address.

I did that Tuesday after the latest National League numbers were released. Ramirez had dropped to seventh place among outfielders. His 1,343,011 votes were still about 1,343,010 more than he deserves based on performance, but since when has that mattered?

I entered my e-mail address (the non-business one that pays homage to Sen. Kennedy), filled out the date of birth, favorite team, country and zip code (lying on everything just to screw up the demographics), typed in a five-digit keyword and went to work.

There it was, the ninth name listed on the final column of NL outfielders.

M. Ramirez LAD.

Check.

I hit "submit," and the screen asked if I wanted to vote again. I didn't even have to fill out another ballot. All I had to do was type another keyword and click the mouse twice.

It took about seven minutes to cast 25 votes. I wondered how anyone would know if I voted as somebody else, so I typed in my wife's e-mail address.

She doesn't know Manny Ramirez from Charlie Manuel, but seven minutes later, he had her 25 votes. I knew because MLB.com sent her a thank you e-mail that included a 15-percent discount on her next order at the MLB.com Shop. I only hope she doesn't order any of the fertility drugs Ramirez was supposedly taking.

Baseball's overriding goal in all this is to generate web revenue, not to identify the most deserving All-Stars. It will gladly bury its head in rosin bags as ballots are stuffed, just as it played dumb while Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and the rest corked their bodies.

Among a million other things, that cheated Hank Aaron out of his home run crown. I figured why not help perpetrate this little fraud, especially if it could backfire on baseball and lead to Ramirez playing the Elephant in the Room at Selig's All-Star bash.

For grins I typed in a new e-mail address:

Mannycheats@aol.com

Sure enough, it took those 25 votes. To make that ballot seem legit, Manny also voted for fellow juicers Miguel Tejada, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi."My fellow Americans, your voice must be heard. Not only your voice, but the voices of your relatives, imaginary friends, Congressmen, religious figures and anybody else you care to concoct an e-mail address for."

Next up was Seligstinks@aol.com, followed by RogerClemens@aol.com and MichaelJackson@aol.com. Surely he'll appreciate the 15 percent discount at the MLB shop.

Then I asked the eternal question, WWJD?

JesusChrist@aol.com suddenly appeared and cast 25 votes for the Dodgers' prodigal outfielder.

That made 175 votes for Ramirez in less than an hour, all from one person. If this writing thing doesn't work out, I am now qualified to be president of ACORN.

Speaking of which, the theme of this year's All-Star Game is community organizing and involvement. No player exemplifies that more than Mannywood himself. Thousands of sycophants show up Dodger Stadium with Rasta wigs and blank looks on their faces.

Ramirez is a human cartoon spawned by people who prefer to look the other way. If nothing else, he needs to be in St. Louis to honor Don Fehr. The union boss is retiring after 25 years, the last 15 of which he spent hiding players' syringes.

Then there's Selig, who claims he had almost no clue his labor force was juicing. And even if he had, he couldn't stand up to the all-powerful union.

What better way to pay homage to these visionaries than by having Ramirez bat cleanup and commit three errors in left field?

Well, the All-Star entertainment committee could also bring back McGwire and Sosa. Instead of a 7th-inning stretch, have them take the mound and recite their Congressional testimony.

And why not invite Barry Bonds, just to see if his head will still fit under the Gateway Arch?

Gosh, if only the fans could vote on that. As it is, they can click away for Ramirez until their fingers fall off or balloting ends at midnight Thursday.

My fellow Americans, your voice must be heard. Not only your voice, but the voices of your relatives, imaginary friends, Congressmen, religious figures and anybody else you care to concoct an e-mail address for.

If you're worried that it's cheating, just remember one thing.

This is baseball. It's all part of the game.

Tags: Bud+Selig, manny+ramirez

Related Articles

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)




Complete World Series Coverage

2009 World Series -- FanHouse Illustration
FanHouse's coverage of the 2009 Fall Classic.

Baseball's Forgotten Crusader

Curt Flood -- FanHouse Illustration
Four decades ago, Curt Flood made enormous sacrifices and changed the national pastime forever.