Since 2007, waiting for Sergio Mitre to make a major league appearance as a starter has been a little bit like waiting for Godot. First there was the injury, then the 50 game suspension.  When last night’s start was delayed for half an hour by the rain, one started to wonder if Mitre would ever get his day on the mound.

But finally, the skies parted, and after 5 and 2/3 innings, during which he allowed four runs — three earned — and eight hits Mitre got that major league start he’d been so anxiously awaiting.  What’s more, he got the W on a 6-4 Yankees victory, bumping the Bombers firmly into first place.

The outing was solid — not exactly the performance of an ace — but solid.  It was the comeback, however, that was the really story here. Or, in a sense, it was the comeback that wasn’t a story.

Sergio Mitre, like Manny Ramirez, served a 50 day suspension for the use of banned substances. The most fundamental difference between the two suspensions, of course, being that Manny is Manny and Sergio is not.  In the coverage of yesterday’s game, Mitre’s suspension was more of an aside than anything else.  It was this total lack of emphasis on Mitre’s drug use and suspension that really got me thinking about Manny Ramirez and his return from exile.  Sure, like I said, Manny is Manny and we’re always going to care more about what he does than, say, almost anyone else.  But does that make him any less entitled to move on from a 50 day suspension than another player of lesser value

Some might argue, yes.  When you’re dealing with better players, there are other issues at stakes – records, hall of fame induction.  These are complicated and morally gray areas. I don’t deny that. If you think that the use of steroids is cheating, then it’s tricky, this question of how you deal with statistics accumulated during a period of time when a player was known to have been using performance-enhancing drugs.  This is an issue for Major League Baseball — and it’s one that seems to me to be separate from the issue at hand.  (By the way, good luck with all that.)

While I’m the last to defend the use of performance-enhancing drugs, it occurs to me that once a player comes back from a suspension, he should be allowed to move on with his career regardless of his level of superstardom.  No, I don’t applaud the behavior, but the point of the suspension is that it’s supposed to serve as a punishment.  It strikes me as hypocritical that just because some players are richer, more famous than others that they should get a larger dose of justice.  Fans cheered for Mitre when he left the mound last night, and no one cared.  So why not let them cheer for Ramirez or the next of the big name players to serve a suspension if they want to?

Sure, I don’t like Ramirez, but no one said it better than guest blogger Chris Yamaoka when he said that I can boo him simply because he’s a self-obsessed, narcissistic pain in the pujols. It doesn’t have to be about the steroids.  (Those weren’t Chris’s exact words.  I might be paraphrasing ever-so-slightly.)