Manny Being Manny (Again)

Wow, a lot has changed in the last 24 hours. Last we knew, Manny Ramirez was contemplating a two year $45 million offer from the Los Angeles Dodgers, the only team bidding for his services. Not only that but this offer has been on the table since mid November. As the market has dried up and teams are searching for bargain basement prices for proven stars, Manny's stance hasn't changed. He's still looking for a four or five year deal at $25 million at year. Yeah, I knew he was crazy when he played in Boston but apparently he's moved on to completely insane, too.

Overnight, the Dodgers began wising up, offered Manny a one year deal for $25 million and gave him a 48 hour deadline to accept or reject the offer. He took about 8.6 seconds to reject the offer. Gotta love Manny. While the rest of America is in the worst economic slump since the Great Depression and players like Jason Varitek, Jon Garland, Andy Pettite and others are taking huge paycuts, Manny is sticking by his original contract demand of at least four years. Meanwhile, guys like Adam Dunn, Kenn Griffey Jr. and Bobby Abreu can't even get minor league deals and an invitation to spring training.

But the beauty of it all is that this sets Manny up to be totally screwed in the next few weeks. The only team that appears to be remotely interested is only making a one year offer. The other team that has shown marginal interest are the San Francisco Giants. The Giants have no one else to hit on their team and Manny would surely loaf after about three games in the Bay Area.

A few weeks ago I sort of lazily predicted that Manny would end up with the Kansas City Royals for around nine million next year. Right now, that doesn't seem so crazy.

Baseball Ponderings

There's been a lot going on in the baseball world the last few weeks that has me jacked and pumped for the start of spring training. Yeah, there have been a ton of free agent signings recently but I'm more interested in what hasn't happened than in what has happened. Here's a snapshot of what's gone down lately:

The Red Sox held a private meeting with free agent catcher Jason Varitek in Atlanta a few days ago, without his agent, Scott Boras. The Red Sox have soured on Boras this offseason because of the Mark Teixeira dealing and now are trying to work on a deal with Varitek that doesn't involve Boras. Here's the thing- Boras told Varitek to decline arbitration, where the captain would have made $10-11 million next year and also stayed with the Sox. By declining arbitration, Varitek screwed himself. There is no other market for an aging catcher who can't do anything but call a decent game. I wouldn't mind seeing Varitek come back but the deal has to be $3-4 million for a year with incentives. Remember, this is a guy who hit .222 last year and can't even catch the knuckball.

And speaking of Boras, in addition to screwing Varitek, he has also screwed Manny Ramirez, not that there's anything wrong with that. Since Ramirez already had a contract with the Red Sox when Ramirez hired Boras, the slimy agent wasn't earning any commission on his contract. So Boras did the only thing he knows how to do- he got Ramirez to shoot his way out of town and then lit up the weak National League West the last half of the year in an attempt to get a five year, $125 deal. Since Boras helped Teixeira land in New York, they dropped out of the running for Ramirez, essentially leaving the so called greatest right handed hitter of our time without a team less than a month from spring training. Had Teixeira signed with the Red Sox, the Yankees almost certainly would have gone hard after Ramirez. Now the only team that has shown any interest in him are the Dodgers, where the two year, $45 million offer may or may not be on the table. And let's not forget that Ramirez was already slated to make $40 million over the next two years had he not shot his way out of Boston. It would give me imense pleasure to see Ramirez sign on with some team that has no shot of making the post season for less than what he would have made in Boston. You think he was a headache before this debacle? Wait until he's playing in Kansas City for $9 million a year.

And speaking of things that couldn't happen to a nicer guy, there are now reports that the once glorified Pedro Martinez is in contract talks with none other than the Pittsburgh Pirates. So Petey has gone from winning the World Series in 2004 with the Red Sox and pretty much having the keys to the city to signing a lucrative $53 million deal with the New York Mets where he posted a record of 32-23 over four years to now having to negotiate with the Pirates who want to pay him $5 million to pitch for their crappy team. This is almost too good to be true. Stay tuned for more Pedro the Pirate talk!





One last baseball note that I wanted to hit on, as well. After two years of pretty much dismal play, one in Atlanta and one in Los Angeles, the Dodgers recently released their so called slugger Andruw Jones, even though they still owe him more than $22 million. While the Dodgers are at fault for singing him to this ridiculous contract, I wish that Major League Baseball were more like the NFL in this regard. There are few guaranteed contracts in football and it works to the league's advantage not to have overpriced players playing at a low level, allowing teams to bring in other players to stay under the salary cap. Their system isn't perfect either but it sure beats having to pay players like Mike Hampton, Carl Pavano and Darren Dreifort untold millions when they can't even get on the field.

Youk Deserved to Get Slapped!?

So last week Manny Ramirez slapped Kevin Youkilis in the dugout and it has gone largely unnoticed in Boston. In fact, for all of the Manny Being Manny moments we've had over the years, this one is getting the least amount of air time, both in the papers and on the radio. It's almost like it never happened. Maybe it's the fact that the Celtics are on the verge of crushing Kobe and the Kobette's for banner number 17 or the fact that we've all been so wrapped up in the Stanley Cup Finals (yawn).

It appears that the real story is now coming out on the fight and it's apparently Youk's fault. Check out this Boston Herald article that explains Youk's intensity and his frustration at making an out. Still don't see how it's Youk's fault?

I guess I get it now. Youk plays hard, has always been a team guy (remember how they kept optioning him to AAA a few years ago because he was the only one with options left even though he was better than most of the players on the team?), rarely makes any mental mistakes, plays flawless defense at first base, always talks to the media following a good or bad night but apparently has a penchant for taking things out on the water cooler in the dugout. I'm cool with that.

On the other hand, we have Manny Being Manny who likes to take days off when the team is shorthanded, lollygags to first on almost every play, stands in the batters box admiring long balls that sometimes don't even go out of the park, makes a ton of baserunning errors and never talks to the media. This is a guy that even President Bush made fun of for not showing up at the White House earlier this year for a team gathering and Bush bashed him for always using the excuse that his grandmother died.

And somehow people think Youk deserved to get slapped? I don't get it. This isn't another Manny Being Manny moment. This is Manny Being an Idiot and apparently he's going to get a free pass on this one.

The incident takes place around the :30 second mark of the video below. I wish John Madden could do the play by play on this video because it would go something like this . . . "Okay, watch right here. We see Manny coming back to the dugout. Keep watching. Wait for it. Right here. BOOM! There's the hard slap to the face by Manny. I don't know what Manny was thinking but he gets the Thanksgiving Turkey leg for that hit."


From now on, when someone gets sucker punched, I think it should be called "getting Youk'd."

Manny Being Manny

You may or may not know that Manny Ramirez hit his 500th home run over the weekend. What I can't figure out is if he hit it at Fenway Park or in Baltimore.

Seriously, are there any Orioles fans out there? That's kind of pathetic to have the home crowd going nuts for another team's player, even someone who just hit his 500th home run. I sort of expected a decent round of applause but while I was watching the video, I thought they were going to bring him out for a curtain call or two or have him do the Cal Ripken lap around the stadium, similar to when Ripken broke the consecutive games played streak. Perhaps that's why the O's are in last place. Well, that and the fact that Kevin Millar is their starting first baseman.

Looking back on the celebration, I guess I'm sort of dissapointed that Baltimore didn't have some type of huge banner unroll with the number 500 on it, a huge picture of Manny, a video highlight film of every one of his 500 home runs and the unveiling of Manny Being Manny Highway.

When you're watching the video below, check out Julio Lugo's reaction to the home run when Manny comes back to the dugout. First, he gives him a hug that lasts waaaaay too long before Manny even gets to the dugout steps. Then, after Manny has high fived everyone, we see Lugo return for a second helping of another waaaaay too long hug.



And in case you missed Manny's catch and high five earlier in the year, here it is. This is classic Manny being Manny. He probably doesn't even know what ball park he's playing or the score of the game but he's conscious enough to make a nice running catch, run another five steps, leap up the outfield wall and high five someone in the crowd. Classic Manny. This also took place in Baltimore and, as you can hear, the crowd is going nuts. Way to support the local team. They should rename Camden Yard to Fenway South.