There's been a lot written about Manny Ramirez since he retired last Friday afternoon, but it seems at least that the Rays got closure from Manny. From Marc Topkin and the St. Pete Times:
Manager Joe Maddon revealed that Ramirez called him after the news broke Friday and said he was disappointed in himself, but he didn't explain or apologize for his actions leading to the positive drug test that prompted his decision.
"He just said he was disappointed; he didn't necessarily apologize," Maddon said Monday. "And I wasn't looking for an apology, actually. I wasn't. He spoke to me kinda like man to man, person to person, manager to player kind of a thing. So I didn't think he owed me an apology."
"He expressed disappointment in himself to me, also, but also had really high praise for us as an organization, as a group, so I felt pretty good about that. I'm really not a judgmental person by nature. I took him for his word right there."
It was a bad situation and it was stupid for Manny to let something like this happen again, but at the same time, it's done at this point and all the Rays can do is move forward. Losing Manny will make it tough for them to compete in the AL East race this season, but crazier things have happened in baseball.
Personally, I think Manny was ready to be done with constantly being a news story. He conducted himself perfectly in spring training this year, and he chose to retire instead of lingering and attempting a 60-game comeback late this season. His goodbye was short, quick, and sweet, and now he's disappeared off to Spain on a vacation. He'd been a front page news story for so long, I really can't blame him if he simply wanted to escape from the intense media scrutiny that was sure to come with his second suspension due to steroids.
Goodbye, Manny. We barely knew ye.