Mannywood... the reaction

There's nothing quite like a positive steroids test to bring out the hyper self-righteousness of sportswriters. 

Does that mean that taking steroids is a good thing? Of course not. But the implication that somehow Manny Ramirez was Earth's greatest hero and the new hope of the game before last Thursday is profound revisionist history. He was a man largely reviled in New England for forcing his way out of the lineup of the defending World Series champion by allegedly being a malingerer. A man whose team placed him on irrevocable waivers after being within a few outs of a World Series in 2003. 

When sportswriters are angered, one must get out of the way, because quite frankly, you might be killed by the torrent of acidic venom. Bill Plaschke wrote that Manny should be "fired," others writing about how he's destroyed the Dodgers' season, and other equally histrionic protestations. But the real issue is this:

No one suspected it. And they didn't expect it because they assumed Manny was too stupid to keep up a steroid program.

The anger over steroids from sports writers primarily, I suspect, comes from having not suspected anything in the summer of 98. Everyone was so taken by the story of McGwire and Sosa, of the surly giant man with his adorably chubby son and the effusive enthusiasm of this wonderfully fun Dominican, that they didn't actually think about what might be happening to the record book. They also hated Bonds anyway, and notice that whenever Bonds' pursuit of records and connections to steroids were played up, his seemingly evil nature was always brought up as well. A-Rod's admission, it seemed, brought a similar reaction, because A-Rod's character was already under assault. 

Essentially, sports writers are loyal to the story, including stories they've created themselves. Anything that destroys that ready-made story, that's the violation.