Topps Cards That Should Have Been: The Manny Ramirez Chronicles

In 2010, Manny Ramirez was still doing pretty well with the Dodgers, still a well-known superstar with capabilities of hitting tons of home runs and making flashy appearances in games. However, in 2009, Manny has his infamous suspension over using a fertility drug as a PED. He rebounds accordingly with .311 numbers in 66 games in LA, but the murkiness that befell his 2009 season hasn't left, especially after rumors of more potent performance enhancing drugs begin to circulate after Alex Rodriguez is implicated.

The bottom line is that 2010 is probably the last time Manny Ramirez really feels like Manny Ramirez. I was at a game in LA when he was still with the Dodgers, and...yeah, that was Manny. He was still, for the most part, being Manny.

It's when he's waived by the White Sox that his career essentially begins to unravel.

Manny spends the last month of the 2010 season with the White Sox, and while the numbers aren't bad, .261 with a home run, his final one, in 24 games, you can see the magic beginning to leave. This stint happened after Topps' cutoff for 2010 Topps, so it wasn't depicted until 2011 Topps.

Then, by that point, Manny had already signed with a new team. He and former Red Sox teammate Johnny Damon made a very big splash in January by both signing with the Tampa Bay Rays on one-year deals. Yes, their best years were past them, but they still wanted to play, and as Tampa was fielding free agents, they saw the opportunity to reunite, and jumped on it. 

2011 was going to be a fun, successful year for Manny, and Topps jumped on the excitement despite missing a Rays card of him for flagship, getting him in Heritage and Bowman in Rays colors. The assumption would be that Manny would get his Rays card in Update..

Except he didn't last in Tampa past April.

It wasn't due to his numbers. Ramirez hit .311 in Spring Training, and was looking at a comeback season. And though his first week left a lot to be desired, with a sub-.100 average and no homers, he was looking forward to getting back to his base level.

Then, on April 8th, Manny Ramirez abruptly retires. It's an inexplicable move that doesn't make sense until the facts come out. Manny tested positive for PEDs again, and would face an 100-game suspension if he chose to keep playing, so he decided right then and there to retire, confusing the hell out of the Rays management. Despite attempted stints with Oakland and Chicago in the next few years, this is the last time Manny sees the majors, and it's a very cloudy note to end his career on.

Topps decides not to make a card of him for Update, as it'd probably be too distracting and unnecessary. I don't have the ethics and standards of a baseball card company, and I like filling in holes in the timeline, so...I made one regardless. 6 games or no, he still played in 2011, and it's a true sunset issue. 

Regardless of how you feel about Manny Ramirez, he's an important figure in baseball history, and his final career footnotes deserve depiction as much as his heights.