Ayn Rand’s Got Manny’s Back (Even If No One Else Does)
Hey, did you hear? L.A.’s natural hitter uterine supplement abuser Manny Ramirez got caught using uterine supplements and was sent down to the minor leagues until his uterus was less supplemental. Have I got that right? I’m not keen on details. Really, the only thing I’m sure about is that Manny Ramirez has a uterus. I’m also sure that while he was down in the minors last month, Man-Ram made a few dozen minor leaguers angry with him.
When people discuss Ramirez, it’s hard not to bring up the word traditional. I mean, what’s more traditional than a 12-time MLB All-Star Dominican with a uterus? So it only made sense that when Ramirez was slumming in Albuquerque or Inland Empire’s minor league teams that Ramirez would behave exactly as everyone before him has behaved, right?
It’s been a longstanding tradition that big leaguers who rehab (from addictions to feminine drugs) in the minors buy their small-time teammates dinner before going back to the big leagues.
So imagine the confused shock swirling around the sports world upon hearing that the guy who took a whiz in the Green Monster in between innings or played the field while wearing an iPod didn’t conform to the dictates of minor league tradition and played for – not one – but two minor league teams without buying them squat. According to Minor League Dugout, “one of baseball’s unwritten rules requires major league players on rehabilitation assignments to furnish a post-game meal for their often under-funded minor league teammates.
Photo courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via Getty Images
Why aren’t unwritten rules ever eventually written down? How can a rule that no one speaks about be a requirement as suggested in the above description? And why, sweet Jesus, would anyone assume Ramirez would do … anything that is expected of most other players? When has that ever happened with him?
Sports writers have got it all wrong. Man-Ram’s not selfish in the negative use of the word, but an objectivist, maybe even an egoist. Ramirez has been called a lot of things in his 16 years in the league and most of those things settle somewhere around the idea that this guy is a flaky buffoon. And the fact that he makes about $17,000-and-hour more than the dude who he replaced in Albuquerque’s lineup while he was there does lend itself to a slam dunk good deed. What’s a few $60 steaks to a guy making $23.9 million this year?
But this all assumes that Ramirez listens to party lines, which is a weird assumption to make considering you just called him a flaky buffoon.
Yes you did. I just heard you.
Perhaps Ramirez is principled. You ever think of that? Those calling Ramirez a “cheap ass” perhaps have not considered that he doesn’t believe his money should be given away “just because.” Perhaps Ramirez has been reading some Ayn Rand.
From The Virtue of Selfishness:
Objectivists will often hear a question such as: “What will be done about the poor … in a free society?” The altruist premise, implicit in that question, is that men are “their brothers’ keepers” and that the misfortune of some is a mortgage on others. Observe that he does not ask: “Should anything be done?” but: “What will be done?” – as if the collectivist premise has been tacitly accepted and all that remains is a discussion of the means to implement it.
Honestly, did anyone ask Manny Ramirez if he’d like to buy his team dinner? Perhaps he felt that throwing his money around would insult his bat brothers. Many have assumed Ramirez believed buying dinner was virtuous and declined anyway because of greed. Do we know he felt that way, or have the feelings of many been projected onto the feelings of Manny?
Howard Roark designed buildings no one wanted. Dagny Taggart kept her railroad operating when no one else could. Manny Ramirez – perhaps – skimps out on a team dinner in order to assert his independence from tradition. Common with all of these mythical figures is their virtue in the face of immense contrasting social pressures. Ayn Rand would applaud Ramirez, just as most others have been booing him.
Only individual men have the right to decide when or whether they wish to help others; society – as an organized political system – has no rights in the matter at all.
You hear that, Organized Political System? Back off! It’s just as likely that his choice not to treat everyone to a fondue dinner was as virtuous as it was selfish. Has anyone investigated the type of players on Inland Empire and Albuquerque? Did they deserve a fondue outing? Had one of those minor leaguers verbalized that he expected a free feast simply because he’s less financially secure than Ramirez, then I’d bet the same society that calls Ramirez cheap would also call the minor leaguer a mooch. Ramirez was a tourist to these teams and unlikely made any long lasting friendships.
Is it necessary to treat a team to dinner simply because others have? A lot of people wouldn’t be able to drive in 100 RBIs in a single season, does that mean Ramirez should have refrained from doing so?
Ms. Rand continues:
The practical implementation of friendship, affection and love consist of incorporating the welfare of the person involved into one’s own hierarchy of values, then acting accordingly. But this is a reward which men have to earn by means of their virtues and which one cannot grant to mere acquaintances or strangers. What, then, should one properly grant to strangers? The generalized respect …
Reports claimed that Ramirez was cheap, not that he was disrespectful. How can we be sure Man-Ram wasn’t paying the ultimate respect to his players by letting them feed themselves like men? He earned negotiated his fortune, why would he spend it on an abstract idea of tradition?
Those players will thank Ramirez in a few years when their misplaced anger motivates them to hit a major league fastball.
That would be true charity.
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A steak dinner thanks to Home Run Derby
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