We arrived in hilly Riverside County on a scorching Saturday afternoon, the fertility drug fatale and I, same game, different missions.
Manny Ramirez was here to play for the Class-A Inland Empire 66ers on his first phony rehab assignment in Southern California.
I was here to find a Dodgers fan brave enough to boo him.
Surely it would happen, right?
Surely, somebody will hold him accountable for a 50-game suspension for violating baseball's drug policy?
Surely somebody would let him know that, because he has yet to offer any true remorse or explanation since his May 7 suspension, somebody was going to publicly wonder why?
He had appeared in two games at triple-A Albuquerque, where he was showered with love, but folks down there rarely see a celebrity that didn't come out of a UFO, so they can be excused.
Dodgers fans are tougher, right?
Ramirez was going to be, um, needled, right?
Even here in this gorgeous gem of a ballpark known simply as The Diamond, against a team wearing wonderful throwback San Diego Padres uniforms, Dodgers fans surely wouldn't be afraid to hold their best player accountable to the same standards they apply to themselves.
This was my hope as I walked over to a dozen blue-jersey-wearing fans lining a white fence that led from the parking lot to the visitors' clubhouse.
It was 2 1/2 hours until the first pitch, and in pulled an SUV, and out stepped Ramirez, and up perked my ears.
Surely they would boo him because the driver was the Dodgers' roving strength coach, Mike Winkler.
This made Ramirez perhaps the only drug offender in baseball history whose employers gave him his own chauffeur during the suspension.
Or surely they would boo him because he was accompanied into the clubhouse by Rico Perdomo, a relative who was in the gym with Ramirez this winter.
Again, this made Ramirez perhaps the only drug offender in baseball history allowed to bring previous workout buddies into the clubhouse and dugout with him during his suspension.
Hey commissioner, are you watching this? Any of it?
Lots of reasons to boo the entrance. But nobody booing, everybody cheering "I love you Manny!" again and again.
OK, fine, I gave the people a pass because they had waited in subhuman heat to see their hero, maybe their heads were as mottled as Ramirez's testosterone levels.
