Tag: Red Sox

Is it over for Manny and the Sox?

Not to be overly dramatic, but it’s possible that Manny Ramírez’s career with the Red Sox will end a few hours from now. The Providence Journal’s Sean McAdam reports that if Ramírez refuses to play in today’s game against the Yankees, “disciplinary action — which could include a suspension — will be taken.”

McAdam’s bombshell is unsourced, but it looks to me like he wouldn’t have made such a strong declaration unless it came directly from Terry Francona. Further evidence that Tito’s had enough comes in Dan Shaughnessy’s column in the Boston Globe. “Manny shut it down in 2006 and he’s toying with the Red Sox again,” Shaughnessy writes. “In the middle of a pennant race. It is despicable. And the front office and his teammates are burning. Off the record, of course.”

I’m not going to endorse Shaughnessy’s contention that Ramírez quit on the team in 2006; it seemed at the time that there was a better-than-even chance he had a legitimate injury. I quote Shaughnessy only to point out that he claims both management and players have had enough of Manny’s act, even if they’re not willing to be quoted. (Is Francona afraid he’ll be overruled if he tries to suspend Ramírez?)

At the Boston Herald, blogger Rob Bradford lends support to McAdam’s story, saying there are “strong indications” Manny will be disciplined, and possibly suspended, if he won’t play today. And columnist Steve Buckley says Ramírez ought to be escorted from the premises right now.

A few observations.

1. I was listening to “The Big Show” on WEEI (AM 850) yesterday when McAdam came on to report that Ramírez had just taken himself out of the lineup. Seconds earlier, the consensus had been that the Red Sox should stick with Manny, and possibly renew his option for next year, because for the first time they control his destiny — no performance, no money. Post-McAdam? Flabbergasted incoherence. I can’t say I blame them.

2. Whether Ramírez’s injury is legitimate or not (an MRI reportedly showed nothing, but who knows?), he has conducted himself in an unprofessional manner. You can’t blame the Sox for believing that Manny is faking it and pouting over the fallout from his pushing incident with traveling secretary Jack McCormick and the recent public roasting he received from principal owner John Henry.

3. Ramírez has been acting strangely for years, but this year is especially odd. On the one hand, he’s been much more open. On the other, the incidents with McCormick and Kevin Youkilis are out of character. One possible explanation: He’s desperately hoping to get his option picked up, and he senses that age is catching up with him and his skills are deteriorating. Even after a winter when he reportedly worked harder than ever to get ready for the season.

4. The 2008 Red Sox are a good team, but, with all the injuries and bullpen woes, they don’t look like they’re built to go all the way. If Manny’s teammates are as frustrated with him as we’ve been led to believe, it might have a salutary effect to dump him right now. If Brandon Moss comes through, it might be the spark they need to make it into the post-season. But even if they’re destined to finish second or third, management will have made a statement that could pay off down the line.

The Red Sox won two World Series in part because of Francona’s ability to keep Ramírez happy and productive most of the time. It might be his single most important accomplishment as manager. Now it looks like it’s over.

Photo (cc) by Jeff Wheeler and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Is that all there is?

I’ll reserve judgment over the latest contretemps regarding Manny Ramírez. But I do want to flag an unsettling quote from Bob Lobel in Dan Shaughnessy’s column today.

It was Lobel, formerly of WBZ-TV (Channel 4), who took to WEEI Radio (AM 850) earlier in the week to report that Ramírez had (a) been fined six figures for shoving traveling secretary Jack McCormick and (b) infuriated management by taking three straight called strikes from Mariano Rivera to protest his punishment. Now Red Sox officials are denying it — especially (b).

Here’s Lobel talking to Shaughnessy:

I don’t think this is false information. It’s not something I’d make up. It didn’t come to me in a dream. I know it’s not in their best interests to talk about this, but I’m pretty confident with what I said.

Whoa. Lobel doesn’t think this is false information? Now, there’s a lofty standard. Given that Gordon Edes has reported the fine was about 10 percent of what Lobel claims, I think Lobel owes us more, although he obviously can’t out any anonymous sources he may have.

As for Manny looking at three straight pitches, I watched that game, and yes, it was disconcerting. But Ramírez had preceded that with some big-time loosening-up in the on-deck circle. If he were trying to send a message to management, you’d think he’d just kneel there, immobile.

I forget who the television analyst was, but his explanation that Manny was looking for a pitch in a specific location made sense to me. When Rivera is on, he’s not exactly easy to hit.

Sorry for the relative dearth of links. I’m having Internet problems today.

Why wasn’t Ramírez suspended?

I considered letting this go, but figured some readers might wonder why I was taking a pass on the Manny Ramírez situation.

Assuming Ramírez behaved as has been described — shoving traveling secretary Jack McCormick to the ground, or hard enough that McCormick fell — then he should have been suspended without pay for three games.

It’s really not a hard call. And I don’t like it that Terry Francona and Theo Epstein appear to be more worried that Ramírez would go south on them for a month than they are about doing the right thing.

I don’t want to make too much of this. But the Sox are making too little of it.

Assessing Curt Schilling

Nick Cafardo asks: Does Curt Schilling belong in the Hall of Fame?

But that’s shorthand. Here’s the real question: Does a guy whose career record makes him, at best, a borderline candidate for the Hall deserve to go in because of his extraordinary post-seasons?

I say yes. When Schilling had a chance to perform on baseball’s biggest stage, he came through. It’s a shame that Jim Rice, to name just one example, never had the same opportunity. But the point is to win it all, and Schilling’s been a key guy on three separate occasions.

Farewell, Curt

Curt Schilling announces that his career is over, or close to it, as he needs surgery on his ailing shoulder. He was the key to one championship and made a big contribution to another. His constant, occasionally self-serving patter wasn’t popular with everyone, but he strikes me as a pretty good guy who’ll do anything to win.

Even if he can come back, Schilling predicts that the rehab will be brutal, and that it probably wouldn’t make sense for him to start pitching before mid-2009. Which means that the Red Sox’ preferred strategy for this year — a strengthening program rather than immediate surgery — was the wise course of action, even though it didn’t work out. If he’d had surgery back in February, he’d have almost certainly missed the entire season.

Photo (cc) by guano, and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Curt Schilling, hoop god

No doubt the first thing you did after reading the papers this morning was log on to Curt Schilling’s blog so you could get the full rundown on his criticism of Kobe Bryant. It’s good stuff. Schilling even knows how to be disingenuous. While claiming that he’s a newcomer to basketball, and hey, maybe NBA players are supposed to act like self-centered crybabies, he offers this:

Kevin Garnett, and not that this needs to be stated, but I’ll say it anyway, is as focused and locked in as any athlete in any sport I’ve been around. From pre-game shoot around to last seconds on the clock, this kid is legit. The intensity and reputation are there, wow. His eyes are on the floor, or the ball, all game. What an incredible pleasure it is to watch and be a fan of. I am blown away in that he came out of high school, something that can be a huge disadvantage, and has ALWAYS maintained who he was purported to be.

The first game I saw from these seats the Coach for Washington was basically taunting KG when he was at the line, saying a bunch of things, KG was ignoring him for the most part until he said something that must have been a bit too much, KG pauses, looks over and basically tells him to go piss up a rope.

Last night KG goes to the line, Lamar Odom (who I became a fan of last night) is saying “Hey KG why don’t you help on the ball down here?” Pointing to the paint, and I am guessing he’s referencing the fact that KG wasn’t down in the paint mixing it up. He says it again, loudly, KG doesn’t even acknowledge him, and sinks both. Impressive, total focus.

Schilling also offers a spirited defense of Garnett over that technical that got called Sunday night: “These guys are playing for a world championship, they are as amped up as you expect the best players in the world to be, they are grown men, there’s going to be some PG-13 language, and you are giving a T to a guy for dropping an F bomb? Stupid.”

The section on Bryant comes shortly afterward, and the contrast couldn’t be more stark.

Schilling’s a pretty good writer. He’s got a way with words — who can forget his invocation of Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy’s “inherent ‘toolness,'” a phrase I swear I’m going to steal one of these days. He needs copy editing (who doesn’t?), but other than that, I’d think editors at the Globe or the Herald would jump at the chance to have him in their pages.

Saturday morning roundup

If I were Ernie Roberts, the great Globe sports columnist, I’d tell you what I had for breakfast this Saturday morning. I’m not, so herewith a few observations about this and that.

Deval Patrick’s corporate benefactors. The drip-drip-drip over Gov. Patrick’s book proposal has been more a source of amusement than a cause for genuine concern. Today’s Globe story, in which we learn that he takes credit for the 10,000 people who turned out for a Barack Obama rally on the Common, is a hoot.

But yesterday’s Globe story properly noted a real problem — Patrick’s reliance on corporations, some of which will have business before the state, to buy books by the truckload in order to hand out to employees and clients. The impression you get is of a governor so convinced of his own rectitude that he believes he’s above the rules mere mortals have to follow.

Judge Murphy’s future on the bench. A Globe editorial today urges the state Supreme Judicial Court to suspend Judge Ernest Murphy, who was may be fined earlier this week for his bizarre and threatening letters to Herald publisher Pat Purcell after Murphy won a $2.1 million libel case against the Herald. [Correction: The Commission on Judicial Conduct has recommended that Murphy be censured, suspended for 30 days and fined $25,000.]

I assume the Globe means without pay. As a Herald editorial noted on Wednesday, Murphy has been out on paid leave since sometime last year, collecting his salary of nearly $130,000. It’s hard to think of a public official who has profited so handsomely from media criticism of his performance — which, no matter how imperfectly it may have been executed, is supposed to receive the highest possible protection from the First Amendment.

Helping the fans by gouging them. The Herald goes B-I-G today with the fact that the Red Sox are auctioning off Green Monster tickets to the highest bidder, with some seats going for more than $500.

The best quote is from Ron Bumgarner, the Sox’ vice president of ticketing: “We feel it’s our civic responsibility to keep tickets affordable for fans, and at the end of the day, this helps keep other ticket prices down.” You can’t make this stuff up.

Newspaper-killing chain faces death. The Journal Register Co., known within the business as the cheapest chain on earth, is sinking in a sea of debt and is in danger of being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange. The Journal Register’s best-known paper is the New Haven Register, but it also used to own the Taunton Gazette and the Fall River Herald News, now held by GateHouse Media. It also used to own the Woonsocket Call, where I was a co-op student in the mid-1970s.

Cape Cod Today publisher Walter Brooks sent out a blast e-mail with the news, which he titled “Every tear remained unjerked in its little ducts.” No kidding.