This morning Manny Ramirez was suspended 50 games for violating the MLB drug prevention policies after testing positive for banned substance.

The banned substance is reportedly a fertility drug of all things.  Seriously, if it wasn’t Manny in this story, I wouldn’t believe.  But with Manny… a fertility drug makes sense.  The man is from another planet.  I am completely convinced of this.

The question for Red Sox fans is what this means to the legacy of of the championship years of 2004 and 2007. 

First, Manny says it was an accident based on a decision to have a health condition treated by his doctor and he claims he was not taking anything to enhance performance.

Second, Manny says he’s been tested 15 times over the last 5 years and all results have returned claim. 

As a Red Sox fan you must first ask if you believe him or not.  Which is pretty difficult, because 4 out of 5 players on the steroid issue turn out to be liars.  And then there’s the fact that Manny has no idea what he’s saying or doing in the first place.

But there’s something that’s important to not lose sight of.  At some point, we, the Red Sox fan base, were going to come face to face with the fact that someone on one of those teams was a user.  Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs were (and perhaps still are) too much a underlying little fabric of the game and the culture surrounding it for it to never become a single degree of separation from ‘04 and ‘07.  Anyone thinking something like this would never happen and that we wouldn’t be forced to ask ourselves some serious questions is naive.

Every team in this era will encounter these questions eventually.  The Red Sox are not alone in wondering what into their championship years.