LOS ANGELES: Baseball was reeling on Thursday with the 50-game suspension of Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Manny Ramirez for the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti called it "a dark day for baseball in a lot of ways", as Ramirez became the first marquee player to be suspended under Major League Baseball's stepped-up drug policy.

But the free-spirited slugger is just the latest big name to be linked to drugs in a game in which the damaging Mitchell Report investigation turned up a wealth of evidence of steroid use.