Manny Ramirez

[KiraHarden]

The best player in Baseball, better than Bonds and possibly ever

[will802]

The Red Sox [team stats] owners literally knocked down clubhouse walls to accommodate him, and still Manny Ramirez [stats] says he was never happy in Boston. Two World Series championships, 400-and-something straight sellouts and nearly $160 million were not enough to outweigh the fact that people around here really cared whether their Red Sox won or lost.

Oh, the horror.

It was not easy for Manny to handle all that adulation, but somehow he carried that cross, as T.J. Simers-Boras of the LA Times would put it, for 7 1/2 seasons. Ramirez sat down on a loveseat with the strangely sycophantic Simers for two hours the other day, and revealed at last his problem with Boston.

It was us. You and me. Fans and media. According to that noted renaissance man, Manuel Aristedes Ramirez, we are a bunch of losers who have no lives and constantly tried to give him things, like CDs and food. Like O.J. and Nicole, the problem with Sox fans was that they just loved Manny too much.

It’s remarkable he was able to tolerate us for as long as he did, but maybe Simers is right. Maybe Manny really is a special person who signs over his paycheck to children’s hospitals and cares deeply about those less fortunate than he. Maybe we just didn’t understand him.

“Baseball in Boston is like a Sunday football game, but played every day,” Ramirez said. “We lose in LA, I go to breakfast and people say, ‘Well, you’ll get them tomorrow.’ In Boston, it’s ‘Hey, what’s going on, the Yankees are coming.’

“It’s just a different atmosphere. The fans in Boston got your back no matter what, but I’m talking about the people who write all this bull because it means so much to them. If your happiness depends on (the Red Sox) winning, you have to get a life.”

Being told to get a life by Ramirez is like being told to have some shame by Barney Frank. The first time I interviewed Ramirez, he didn’t know what year he came to the United States or when he moved to New York. When asked his age, he said he was 25. He was almost 27. When he got his cellphone wet, he put it in the microwave to dry. The only surprising thing was that he didn’t try to eat it when it was done.

Ah, but being a dope doesn’t make him a bad person. There are plenty of other things in Manny’s past that do that, including his attack on the 64-year-old traveling secretary Jack McCormick. Manny gave his version of the assault to his pal Simers, and to no one’s surprise, it sounds like a flat-out lie.

Ramirez told Simers that McCormick, a ridiculously nice man whose job is to serve the players with a smile, said some “nasty things” about him, leaving Manny with no choice but to throw a man nearly 30 years his senior to the ground.

“I told him I can’t have you disrespecting me in front of my teammates,” Manny said.

Now here would have been a fitting follow-up question from Simers: Those teammates you speak of, Manny? Would those be the ones you quit on? The ones who were on that team plane that you refused to board? The ones who told GM Theo Epstein to trade your lying, loafing rear end the hell out of Boston?

Ramirez was asked about one former teammate, Curt Schilling [stats], who recently stated the obvious on WEEI when he said Manny only cared about himself. Why didn’t Schilling say it when Manny was here? Because good teammates don’t want to blow their clubhouse up in midseason. Because Schilling adores Terry Francona and wouldn’t want to dump that time bomb in his manager’s lap.

It seems appropriate that Manny’s former teammates will begin the postseason in the Los Angeles area, which Ramirez has renamed Mannywood. While this isn’t high school football on Thanksgiving morning, there is always room for a little extra motivation, and here it is for the 2008 Red Sox:

A loss for you is a win for Manny. They’ll say you couldn’t do it without him. They’ll say it was a fatal mistake to vote him off the island and try to defend your title with nice guys who couldn’t carry Manny’s sweaty do-rag. You wanted him gone and you got him, and you did just fine in the regular season. But even when he quit on you in the regular season, he always showed up in October.

Will Jason Bay do the same? All eyes will be on Bay tonight. All eyes that can stay open past midnight will be on all the Red Sox, which is what bothered Manny so much. All those eyes watching every move he made. He says he hated it here for the same reason most ballplayers love it: the intensity, the energy, the sheer significance of playing for the Red Sox.

He’s happy now in LA, where columnists buy him breakfast and fans let him eat it in peace. He’ll be even happier if his old team gets knocked off by the Los Angeles Angels of Mannywood.

take on mannywood

[will802]

weird the beginning of my post went awol...anyways yes a great player but imo best ever was ted williams. the article above was in the sept 30th edition of the boston herald

[hwbs]

he was a scab to do what he did....to hold the red sox hostage so that he could make his newly acquired agent more money...no way he fetches more than 20 mil a year he was scheduled to get the next 2 seasons...

[bigfreddy]

He's a great hitter, one of the best pure hitters ever, but his defense blows and he's not the most scrupulous guy in the game. What he has done with the Dodgers is amazing, for sure. I just hope the way he held the Red Sox hostage hurts his contract negotiations this offseason.

[Oli]

I don't even think he's the best hitter in baseball today. Albert Pujols is.

I hate to disagree with you Will, but Ted Williams, IMO, is top 5 but not #1.

Henry Aaron
Babe Ruth
Lou Gehrig
Ted Williams
Ty Cobb