Manny Being You Know Who

I wasn't going to do it.

I was going to let it slide.

I was going to stay on the sidelines and let it all just slide away after Thursday.

But then I decided that I started this blog for a reason. Not just to start a love fest for the BC hockey team but to put my thoughts down on all manner of sports subjects. Since I have been a lifelong Boston sports fan I really can not allow all this talk to spin around without putting in my opinion on the Manny Ramirez situation.

Let me start this by saying that I like Manny. I always have since the Red Sox lost out on Mike Mussina and decided to sign Manny instead in 2000. I thought the deal was a little pricey ($20 million a year) but then again I've been complaining about the salaries of professional athletes since I was old enough to start noticing them. Now that we are nearing the end of that deal I can honestly say that the Red Sox have gotten everything they could have wanted out of Manny for these past 8 years. Lots of home runs and RBIs and two World Series rings. Not to mention the amount of interesting things that he has done over the years that has made the phrase "Manny Being Manny" so prevalent throughout Beantown.

One of the things that have repeatedly popped up over the years has been this notion of Manny being unhappy in Boston and that he wants to be traded. I think this story has surfaced more times than I can count. The Red Sox have even memorably placed Manny on waivers in the month of August so he could clear waivers and they could potentially trade him late in the season. Yet somehow Manny is still here. And somehow every time this story comes up, everyone acts like it is something shocking and surprising.

It seems to me that the main reason this is getting more press then usual (and maybe not even more than usual, I just seem to be noticing it more because I'm reading more of it lately...been a little slow at work, I need to do something...), is the timing (just before the trading deadline) and the fact that it is near the end of the 8 year deal. When Manny has asked to be traded in the past the Red Sox have accommodated and tried to pull off deals. He would have been dealt several years ago if they had been able to pull off the A-Rod swap back in 2004. Manny has consistently been up and down with his emotions on this subject but now people seem to be taking a decidedly more caustic attitude toward him.

Old Man Pike said to me the other day that he was "tired of Manny". And maybe this is part of it. I would mention some particularly nasty articles from a certain Boston Globe writer but then I realized that he doesn't deserve the press. Since the "Curse of the Bambino" was lifted he needs to find something else to create the sense of doom in Boston so he latches on to anything he can and right now that is Manny Ramirez. People only seem to be tired of him when writers tell them it is time to be tired of him. If the Globe published an article saying to ignore Manny and it was just his normal stuff there would be no signs in the stands showing dissatisfaction.

The Red Sox are faced with a real dilemma here. They dealt Nomar back in 2004 partly from injury concerns and partly from a sense that he was not good for the locker room. Perhaps Manny is turning into the same distraction and warrants a severing of the relationship. Manny is getting older and his production is clearly on the decline in the past few years from his glory days of the early 2000's. The fact of the matter is that the Red Sox cannot get significant return on the current trade market to make up for the loss of Manny this year. If they were clearly in the tank I would agree that it is time to trade him but they are still knee deep in the race and if they straighten out their bullpen they have as a good a shot as any to win the World Series again this year.

Personally, I think they should keep Manny. Even picking up his next two option years. He's 36 years old and maybe only has 2 or 3 more real good years left at the major league level. He can still produce and he makes David Ortiz and other hitters better just be being in the same line up. Some say he lacks commitment and should be let go. They often point to his often lax attitude in the field and the frequency with which he fails to run hard on outs. He's not alone in this. There are other players who react the same way. Is this a good thing? Of course not. Everyone wants to see their whole team hustle and give everything they have like Trot Nixon or David Eckstein. But the reality is that just doesn't happen. Maybe Manny does it more than most and maybe he doesn't. But he is a clutch performer and has won many more games for his teams over the years by his hitting than he has lost from his fielding or baserunning.

There is one final point I would like to address and that is this theory of Manny faking injuries. The aforementioned Globe writer and others (including Old Man Pike) have suggested that Manny should be gotten rid of simply because he MAY have faked an injury and sat out the game the other night. People forget that the same theory was floated two years ago when Manny clearly decided to just take the end of 2006 off and nurse an injury for the remaining 5 weeks of the season when the Sox were clearly not going to the playoffs. Yet nothing was done and he was back last year and was an integral part of another World Series.

Does Manny Ramirez have flaws? Of course he does. Who doesn't? But is he still capable of producing important at bats at the major league level and lift his club to championship form? Absolutely. The outside distractions are part of the deal when you have Manny Ramirez on your team. It's up to the Red Sox to decide if those are big enough to justify severing their ties with Manny. They just have to be sure they get something in return because all of us who have been watching Boston sports for years knows that if they don't suddenly everyone will be saying that we should have kept Manny and that he wasn't so bad for what he gave us. And a certain Globe writer just might try to erect the "Curse of Manny". What the hell, he never has any credible original thoughts anyway, why not rehash something that made his career.

For me, I hope to see Manny in a Red Sox uniform for the next two years. If not, so be it. As long as he doesn't go to the Yankees