It's a pretty shaky suspension bridge for Manny Ramirez

While the Dodgers were playing the 42nd game of Manny Ramirez's 50-game suspension Tuesday, Manny Ramirez was doing something very strange.

He was playing for the Dodgers.

Well, not exactly, but close enough, as he was playing on a Dodgers-sponsored team, with Dodgers-funded teammates and coaches, in a stadium where a portion of the ticket revenue is sent to Major League Baseball.

Manny Ramirez playing for the triple-A Albuquerque Isotopes is as weird as the word Isotope.

Why is Ramirez allowed to play there? Why is Ramirez allowed to play anywhere? Since when are players allowed to turn a rehab assignment into a detox assignment?

And why can't baseball punish a guy without also apologizing to him?

Sorry about those 50 games, slugger. You can use our minor league club to get back in shape before the suspension ends, come back at full strength, is that OK?

Under the current rules, I don't blame the Dodgers for sending them there, and it's hard to blame Albuquerque for trying to make a few bucks off the circus, but there is something fundamentally wrong about all of this. I blame the entire major league baseball system -- from the commissioner's office to the union to the individual clubs -- because nobody saw this coming.

When negotiating the drug policy three years ago, baseball officials felt they had to allow for minor league rehab assignments in order to get union agreement on a 50-game suspension total. The union was claiming that, otherwise, with the player needing to get back in shape, the suspensions actually would amount to more than 60 games.

Officials were also receiving pressure from their clubs to allow the players to do rehab assignments during the suspensions, instead of later, so the teams did not have to pay the players while they were in the minor leagues.

In the end, the baseball bosses were so desperate for any sort of penalty, they caved in to everybody. And perhaps they hoped that everyone would be so happy the druggies were finally being punished, nobody would notice.

Well, today, we all notice.

Today, a suspended baseball player is back on a field playing baseball and making money for the same people who suspended him.

Today, a shamed drug offender is basking in the national attention and adulation created by the same people who shamed him.