That's Just Manny Being Half a Baseball Player

July 19, 2008

Manny Dive (shrunk).jpg

Friday night, Manny Ramirez, one of the most feared home run hitters in the history of the game, proved for what may well be the three-hundredth fucking time that you don’t really have to be able to play baseball in order to be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame.

All you have to master is swinging a large piece of lumber really fast, thus driving an itty-bitty baseball as far as it can be driven. Catching a baseball, running the bases in a logical manner, throwing to the correct base, remembering how many outs have been made in an inning, and, for all we know, properly donning a jock strap seem well beyond Ramirez’s reach. The next time he’s on ESPN, check to see if there’s a protective cup bulge somewhere on his ass.

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Oh, yeah— Friday night. The Red Sox were playing the Angels, who eventually blew the Sox away by the score of 11-3. Ramirez, the left fielder for Boston - which is to say, he waves his glove at the ball when he decides it’s close enough to catch - inexplicably tried to nab an un-nabbable bloop single by the Angels’ Maicer Izturis. Ramirez missed the ball by a mile when he initially slid toward it, then tripped himself up as he turned around to retrieve it, falling on top of it. After flailing around for a moment, he finally found said ball and tossed it to the infield. By that time, Izturis was standing on third base, drinking a Slo-Gin Fizz.

Then, because he’s just a wacky 9 year-old trapped in a massive 37 year-old multi-millionaire’s body, Ramirez grinned as if he’d just made a fart noise under his arm. The same couldn’t be said of Boston manager Tito Francona.

People talk about how Joe DiMaggio made fielding look so easy; how he just trotted over and caught the thing, virtually every time he tried. Ramirez regularly makes it look like he’s attempting brain surgery on a jet ski. With the sun in his eyes.

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For lack of a better way to phrase it, Manny Ramirez is a bozo who can hit a baseball, and continually gets away with being a bozo because many of those hits turn out to be home runs. But before you start thinking this is a case of sour grapes, that I’m just mad because Ramirez isn’t hitting home runs for my team, I should point out that I thought he was a jackass when he played for the Indians, who are my team!

Once, I was watching a Tribe game on TV when Ramirez was picked off of first base between plays. He wasn’t fooled by a wily pitcher in the middle of a stretch. Everybody was just sort of standing around waiting for the next batter to approach the plate, and it suddenly became obvious that Manny had no intention whatsoever of returning to first, where every Little Leaguer knows he should have been parked. So the pitcher tossed the ball over, and he was tagged out.

And let’s not forget a few weeks ago, when Manny somehow made a great catch near the stands, and got so excited by the achievement he high-fived a fan...then had to be reminded by the other fans that it was still a live ball. He chucked it to second for an unlikely double play, but that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing. You could argue that it’s actually worse because, at this point, he doesn’t deserve a break.

Ramirez likes to refer to such behavior as "Just Manny being Manny," as if having a campaign slogan for his ineptitude frees him from its ramifications. The problem is, it apparently does. Like I said, Cooperstown awaits, but if I was the presenter, I'd make sure he had a good grip on that plaque before I let go of it.

I’m telling you, watching this guy do anything but swing a bat is like watching a chimp roller skate on “Ed Sullivan.” It’s not a matter of whether he can do it well. If he can do it at all, it’s an accomplishment. When he finally leaves the field to hit, you expect the next act to be Ukrainian tumblers.

Paul Tatara

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