Ramirez’s return may be quite a show

SAN DIEGO -- Manny Ramirez will be back in the big leagues tonight after a 50-game suspension for violating baseball's drug policy. His return should be nothing short of a spectacle.

It'll be the start of the Fourth of July weekend, and thousands of blue-clad Los Angeles Dodgers fans are expected to be at sold-out Petco Park to support the dreadlocked slugger in the opener of a three-game series against the San Diego Padres.

Ramirez's ban was based on evidence he used human chorionic gonadotropin, a fertility drug that's banned by baseball, a person familiar with the suspension told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because those details were not released.

HCG is popular among steroid users because it can mitigate the side effects of ending a cycle of the drugs.

Ramirez largely avoided reporters during his minor-league rehab assignment.

When he visited Dodger Stadium in early June, he said he was ready to move on and didn't want to be a distraction.

"I didn't kill nobody, I didn't rape nobody, so that's it, I'm just going to come and play the game," Ramirez said.

"Manny's used to distractions anyway, but I think the players will be happy to have him back and I think they understand what goes with that," Dodgers manager Joe Torre said.

Cla Meredith, the former Meadowbrook High and Virginia Commonwealth star and Padres reliever, seems fascinated by what he called "one of these rare occasions" in which a player has drawn interest "over this event that's really negative and detrimental to himself and the game. It's really kind of taken on a new life of its own. I've never seen, really, something like this."

"Fans like him," the sidearmer said. "And so he's never really had too much negative stuff about him. He's kind of done his own thing in his career. . . . And fans are drawn to him. I can see why."