Jason Stark: It’s so wrong to celebrate Manny’s return

So instead, the reaction to Manny, from Albuquerque to Ensenada, has been—what else?—downright hero worship. You’d think the guy had spent the past 57 days curing cancer, dousing tensions in Iran and smoothing out plot glitches for the final season of “Lost.”

But why? That’s the question we’ve been struggling with since Manny-mania busted out in Albuquerque last week.

Why is America so ready to forgive this guy, of all guys? Because he has fun hair? Because he has a lovable smile? Because he has a long, not necessarily proud, history as baseball’s foremost goofball?

Why would that be enough to outweigh his disgraceful exit from Boston, his indisputable guilt in this case and the dubious alibi his spin doctors typed up to explain his way out of this mess?

Why? We posed that question to four men who have thought about it a lot themselves: esteemed Columbia School of Journalism professor Sandy Padwe, cerebral journalist/author Robert Lipsyte and two of the most thoughtful players we have ever covered, Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt and a man who has turned into an official New York Times op-ed columnist, Doug Glanville.