When it comes to Manny, what would Nietzsche do?

What, you didn't know Socrates was a baseball junkie?

You thought Plato and Nietzsche were so above it all they didn't have a favorite National League team?

Yeah, stupid me, I had no idea either.

But this week I paid a visit to my local house of all things psychic: Tattered Glove Palm Reading of Chavez Ravine.

With Manny Ramirez back Friday, L.A. is now confronted with a bulked-up existential question: How should we view those who have cheated the system by using banned substances? What should we think of those who appear willing to do anything to win? How do we forgive?

Searching for answers, I convened an emergency meeting with the spirits of some of the prime shapers of Western thought.

It actually wasn't hard to get this group together; it's a little-known fact they have been meeting regularly to philosophize on baseball since the White Sox World Series scandal of 1919.

First up? Socrates (Manny-applicable quote: "An honest man is always a child.").

What, I asked, do we make of this Ramirez mess?

"Well, let me say it is good, my friend, that you're asking questions. That's what I'm all about: pondering. The most important question is this: What, exactly, is cheating?"

Just my luck. I go looking for absolutes, all I get is doubt.

At least he was firm about this: Dodgers fans need to look within. "Isn't it strange that so many of them heaped hot scorn on Barry Bonds, but they apparently can't wait for Manny to return for their team?" he wondered. "What's that say about the human condition? I wonder. . . . "

"Enough with the questions!" interjected Plato (Manny-applicable quote: "Better a little which is well done than a great deal imperfectly.").

"Look, I've got answers. Absolutes. Socrates, you've been downing too many Dodger Dogs. Deep down, we know it when we cheat, all right. So do Manny and all the others. I've always said when reason isn't in charge of the body and spirit, you've got real trouble. No. 99 let his appetites for fame and wealth override his reason.

"But we all know deep down when we've done wrong. Trust me, it eats at anyone who cheats. It puts them in their own mental jail. This puts the lie to the idea you can do anything without consequences."

How, I asked, can you be so sure what he did was that bad?

"You're kidding, right?" blurted Thomas Aquinas (Manny-applicable quote: "A man has free choice to the extent that he is rational.").