catfish--you have it exactly right--Ramirez is a cheater who used a female fertility drug to mask his use of PEDs, most likely steroids. This means that no number he has put up, at any point in his career, can be trusted. A thousand players who did not make it into the record books may have done so had they used PEDs. A thousand other players may have competed for MLB roster spots and playing time had they used PEDs. A thousand other players may have made the leap from HS ball to Div I ball had they used PEDs. All of these honest players can enjoy their integrity and their reputations as honest people are well-deserved. Ramirez, like Bonds, Sosa, and so many others of that generation, are tainted forever. Did anything they accomplished on the field reflect talent, hard work, skill, sacrifice, dedication? Or were their numbers and accomplishments simply PED driven facades? We will never know BECAUSE THEY CHEATED, and in doing so they cheated fans, teammates, and baseball itself.
Manny Ramirez should not even be mentioned in the same breath as Mickey Mantle. Sure, the Mick may have had his terrible troubles with alcohol, but the alcohol was legal and certainly never enhanced his performance. The same with the Babe. Maybe we should be asking how much better Mantle's and Ruth's numbers would have been had they been off the sauce.
Now, the debate about Mantle and Mays is a great one. Compare Williams and Dimaggio. Compare Gehrig and Pujols. But don't bring known CHEATERS into the mix. It's like comparing a horse to a Maserati--one is natural and the other is manufactured. The one that is manufactured is manufactured for the purpose of being better than the one that is natural. It is engineered to run faster, and it will do so. It just "ain't" right to compare great natural talents like the Mick to manufactured talents like Ramirez.