Ted Green: I’m going to believe Manny Ramirez is telling the truth

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In the new millennium drug culture of Major League Baseball, where I have written before that it seems like the entire sport is one big pharmacological playground, we the fans are down to believing nothing anyone says anymore after they are caught cheating.

But let’s say for the sake of argument that Manny Ramirez dice la verdad -- he’s telling the truth -- that a doctor gave him a prescription for a medical problem and that RX was a big NO on baseball’s banned substance list.

If you’re familiar with that list it happens to have everything on it except Flintstones vitamins, but that does not excuse either Manny or his doctor.

Being the high-paid, high-profile public figure he is in a sport that is trying to clean up its drug mess, Manny is at fault for taking any prescription, apparently on blind faith.

And the doctor? I don’t even know where to start with him. Who IS his doctor, anyway, Dr. Phil? Dr. Ruth? Dr. Meredith Grey? Dr. George Fishbeck? How can you call yourself a doctor if you’re treating maybe the biggest star in baseball and you don’t know which drugs you can and can’t prescribe?

If the doctor is to blame, he just made an $8-million mistake. And did untold and maybe irreversible damage to Manny’s reputation, undoing the fact that Manny says he passed at least 15 previous drug screenings without issue.

As for the Dodgers, they’ll be fine. UC Santa Barbara could win their division, they already have a 6 1/2-game lead, they have a deep lineup, anyway. Juan Pierre is a very professional replacement, and Manny will be back and very well-rested just before the Fourth of July.

As for Manny, word is, he’s devastated. I hope he’s sincere in his explanation. He’s been so good and fun and uplifting for the Dodgers, for our city, for our collective sports zeitgeist. I hate to think of the jokes they’re probably already telling: No wonder he wears such a baggy uniform, he’s ripped under there!

I know I’m sure gonna miss sitting in Mannywood, or as I now like to call it, section HCG.

Now the bad news, or so it would seem: Apparently the drug used by Ramirez is HCG -- human chorionic gonadotropin. HCG is a women’s fertility drug typically used by steroid users to restart their body’s natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle. It is similar to Clomid, which has been tied to clients of BALCO.

As they say in the law, prima facie, on its face, that information doesn’t sound like Manny took a pill for gout or the heartbreak of psoriasis. And, boy, do I hate to think of Manny lumped in with the other suspected/assumed cheaters like Mr. Potato Head in San Francisco.

So maybe, for now, this is one where I’m going to take Manny at his word. We grownups know there’s no Santa Claus and no Easter Bunny.

But no Manny Ramirez? I’m just not ready to go there quite yet.

-- Ted Green

Ted Green formerly wrote for the L.A. Times. He is currently senior sports producer for KTLA Prime News.