Seven and a half years. I’ve seen shorter marriages. I’ve seen couples be together twice as long and not even go through half as much. Seven and a half years. We fell in love with the goofiness, the laid back attitude, even questionable hairstyles. We’ve won two World Series titles that never would have happened, nor meant nearly as much without him. Seven and a half years. But now, Manny Ramirez, we’ll never be able to quit you, but I think it’s time for the immanent divorce. You had us at “hello,” now we need to end this with “goodbye.” That’s right, a Jerry Maguire reference, I write this column for some seriously, sensitive dudes!
At the beginning of this season I really thought Ramirez was going to produce, as many All-Stars do in potential contract years. Manny’s bat has looked like it did coming out of Cleveland eight Falls ago. The lingering question all season has been “will the Sox pick up his option for 2009?” Eight years ago, $20 million seemed outrageous, but Manny has earned that type of money, and with the figures that are being thrown around for mediocre performances (I’m looking namely at you, Barry Zito), Manny’s contract seems like a relative bargain. That is, if he didn’t make you spend another $10 million on asprin for the ensuing headaches.
I thought he was going to leave the contract situation alone. Then came the All-Star break. The rumblings started, and really haven’t stopped for the past two weeks. It appears that Manny wanted to retire in Boston, now he just wants to know where he stands. Well where you should stand is play out your current contract, then address these issues after the season. But, Manny being Manny is apparently letting Manny being Money in the way, and it is clearly affecting the rest of the team, namely a 3-6 record since the Mid-Summer Classic.
My solution: a straight up trade to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim for outfield slugger Vladimir Guerrero (not to be confused with Beck’s 2005 album “Guero”). The Angels are most likely looking to take Guerrero’s monster pay off their books at the end of the season, same with the Sox and Manny. So what better solution than to swap the two in a blockbuster trade that puts both in a winning situation with a team that would possibly be willing to sign them in the offseason? It’s kind of like ABC’s “Wife Swap,” except with Latin-America baseball players.
In all likelyhood though a trade won’t happen, but it should. It would be great for baseball. Imagine another Red Sox and Angels postseason series if this trade went down. You have the two best teams in baseball that have two of the best bats with a chip on their shoulder against their previous organization. You’ve got Manny wanting to make Theo Epstein eat every word he never said about the situation, then on the other end you have Vlad trying to punish the Angels and win his first World Series. You can’t write this stuff … except on SeriouslyGuys.
Bottom line is Sox fans will always have the special place in our hearts for the guy who used the Green Monster as his own personal latrine, but Manny, it’s time to go.
Top five things that annoy me in sports this week:
5. USA Men’s Basketball
I thought I had seen the last of Kobe Bryant for the summer.
4. Greg Norman
You play that great, then turn down an invite to the PGA Championship?
3. Colorado Rockies
I am personally annoyed with a team being 11 games under .500, and yet only six games out in their division. Bud Selig needs to send the NL West to Double-A ball or something.
2. NBA
You came out of that betting scandal looking like reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal idiots.
1. Favre/Packers never-freaking-ending drama
Someone please make this stop.
You gotta shake hands with your feelings
In the Wicked Sensitive Crew!