Editor's Note: Don't Vote for Manny

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game is not a joke. It is the most honored and revered of all the professional sporting All-Star games. That's why I don't like it when people decide to turn the game into a mockery. Milwaukee fans are already drunk off their first visit to the postseason, and as a result any Brewer with a pulse is getting a bulk of the votes, enough to put the deserving Hanley Ramirez in a close second behind (gulp) J.J. Hardy. But now a push has been started to get Manny Ramirez into the Midsummer Classic. The same Manny who is currently in the middle of a 50-game suspension for a drug violation. Why is he being voted for? It's not because a large consortium of Dodger fans want to see the man who pushed the Boys in Blue into the postseason take part in the game. It's because someone thought it would be a good lesson for Bud Selig and the MLB front-office. They want Selig to learn some kind of complicated lesson by ruining the most treasured holiday of the summer behind Independence Day. What is this lesson? It's that Selig should not sit on his hands, hoping Manny doesn't garner enough votes to become a starter. They've decided to ignore the fact that this situation has never occurred before, or that Manny's suspension will be up by the time the All-Star Game rolls in and the Players' Union would fight tooth-and-nail to make sure Manny can play. The only way to cease the speculation is for Manny himself to come out and announce he will not travel to St. Louis to take part in the festivities. We can only hope that can end the idiocy once and for all.