Manny Unhappy Returns

As we await the multi-million dollar fate of Manny Ramirez in 2009, a troubling metamorphosis has taken place. As usual, the media has clearly hypnotized the often-witless fandom.

Manny is now seen as a total villain, a clubhouse virus that victimized the Red Sox during his days in Boston. Worse, the Boston media minions who unfairly pulverized Ramirez for 8 years somehow feel vindicated. There is no question that the end in Boston was surely the fault of Manny and his agent Scott Boras. However, that does not erase the unwarranted hell that the Boston media piled on Ramirez almost from the beginning of his tenure in Beantown.

In terms of a love-hate, roller coaster relationship, Ramirez and the New England press broke new ground. Simply put, Manny and the Boston media made Kevin Federline and Britney Spears look like Howard and Marion Cunningham.

It began quite literally at the beginning. In March of 2001, during Ramirez’s first Spring Training with Boston, Boston Herald writer Steve Buckley scribbled a good old-fashioned hatchet job when Ramirez initially resisted a move to left field.

Buckley wrote, “We all knew it wouldn’t last. We all knew there would come a day, Manny being Manny, that he’d clam up and ask to be left alone, that he’d find himself a little hiding place in the clubhouse, a place that would be off-limits to the knights of the keyboard.”

He continued, “The fans are going to be watching him, inspecting him, scouting him, before making a determination about whether or not they like him.” Buckley went on to write that Sox fans “zero in on the very best players … and fire away.” In truth, Buckley was describing his own kind. Rushing to judgment on a star player is the modus operandi of the Boston media.

Here was Buckley’s summation of Ramirez based on just a few days of the player’s first spring training. “This guy is getting paid $160 million over eight years and now he’s saying he won’t even play left field in meaningless spring training games … He owes it to the fans to make an effort. Beyond that, he owes the fans an explanation. This is a joke.”

The “joke” that Buckley referred to continued. In 2003, Sportsradio WEEI’s Glenn Ordway said that the Red Sox should not and could not bring Manny Ramirez back to Boston for the 2004 season. Of course, they did, and later that year, Manny won a little award called the World Series MVP.

Even on the road to that prestigious honor, Ramirez still took it on the chin. The Sunday before the 2004 All-Star break, Ramirez missed a start due to a hamstring injury and WEEI’s Larry Johnson unleashed a tirade of trash on the Red Sox slugger.

He accused Ramirez of being a bad teammate and questioned whether the injury was real. In addition, he criticized Ramirez’s desire to play in the All-Star Game.

Perhaps the height of Johnson’s idiocy was his assertion that Ramirez’s teammates were upset with Manny. This was based on a pregame conversation between Curt Schilling and Ramirez, caught on camera by NESN.

The video showed the teammates engaged in polite conversation, but there was no audio. For all Johnson knew, the two could have been discussing an episode of “SpongeBob SquarePants.” Johnson’s attack on Manny was premeditated. At the top of the program, cohost Craig Mustard revealed that Johnson was licking his chops waiting to snipe at Ramirez. “We have our show,” Johnson told Mustard.

Of course now, Schilling is flapping his gums, saying that he did not like Ramirez and that the two had some physical confrontations.

Schilling has a habit of speaking out before and after the fact. He spouted off on steroid use in baseball, but then was mum at the Congressional hearings on the same subject. When they were teammates, Schilling actually defended Manny at times. In fact, when John Kruk criticized Ramirez’s home run bat flip, Schilling said that the ESPN analyst was just trying to stir things up.

Now that Ramirez is gone, all bets are off. I don’t doubt Schilling’s veracity, but I do think that his own abrasive personality was probably just as much to blame.

In a 2005 interview, Kruk, a former teammate of Schilling in Philadelphia, said, “I’m not around the Red Sox, but I’ve talked to people who played with Curt and they do resent that he talks so much. In fact, a former Phillies teammate still wants a piece of him.” Hmm, so maybe we should just call the Schilling-Ramirez tiff a push.

The media assault on Ramirez continued in 2005. Then-Eagle-Tribune scribe John Tomase penned a scathing column, completely eviscerating Ramirez. He questioned the man’s heart, doubted his dedication to team and blamed him for the high ticket prices at Fenway Park.

Confirming the fickle nature of Ramirez’s relationship with the media, this time it was Tomase who was absolutely skewered by talk radio hosts. It was nearly laughable to listen to fellow media members grill Tomase, specifically the ever flip-flopping Ordway.

The fact is that all of Tomase’s criticisms had been voiced previously by others, but timing is everything. In 2001, Ramirez had yet to prove himself as a Red Sox player. In 2003, the team had lost to the Yankees in the ALCS and Boston was still mired in its curse malaise.

Many of Tomase’s points were valid and proved to be prophetic, but he chose to state them at the most popular point in Red Sox history.

In 2005, WEEI’s Sean McAdam opined that Ramirez was faking a quad injury, and later that year, when Ramirez made his seemingly yearly trade request, he was booed roundly by the Fenway faithful.

That night, WBZ-TV’s Bob Lobel theorized that Pedro Martinez, who left Boston for the Mets the previous off-season, convinced Ramirez to demand the trade. Lobel stopped short of blaming Martinez for the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the eruption of Mount St. Helens and Chevy Chase’s talk show, but I’m sure that was coming.

In 2006, Buckley continued his personal agenda against Ramirez by trashing the outfielder for missing that week’s All-Star Game so he could be healthy for the second half of the season. So, let’s review. In 2004, Larry Johnson trashed Manny for wanting to play in the All-Star Game and in 2006 Buckley trashed him for not wanting to play. How do you win?

FSN (now Comcast SportsNet) “Sports Tonight’s” Mike Felger joined the anti-Manny movement in 2006. In the wake of an injury to the slugger, Felger stated, “I don’t think (Manny) is truly injured to the point where he should miss games.” Felger referred to Ramirez’ injury as a “Quote, unquote meniscus tear, because I don’t believe it’s really that torn.”

Herald writer Michael Silverman responded, “(Ramirez) brings it upon himself unfortunately because he doesn’t discuss these things.” Same old stuff. Ramirez didn’t talk to the media, so idiotic doubts and insulting judgments reigned.

On the same show, Felger discussed an injury to Tim Wakefield, but did not question its validity. Why the double standard for Ramirez? Was it because Wakefield is one of the more media-accessible members of the team?

In the end it doesn’t matter. Ramirez is gone, and his reputation is hurting him in his fight for a multi-year contract. His bitter last weeks and final exit from Boston was not the fault of the media, it was his transformation from Manny being Manny to Manny being Angry.

The end makes it easy to peg Ramirez as the bad guy, but before 2008, it was the Boston media who irrationally trashed the guy. As quirky as Ramirez was, he was always a tireless worker, good teammate and solid citizen, undeserving of all the media-created insults and intrigue.

John Molori writes for Patriots Football Weekly, Boston Baseball Magazine, New England Golf Monthly, Methuen Life Magazine and BostonSportsMedia.com. He is a contributor to the “Papa Joe Chevalier Show” at KLAV AM 1230 in Las Vegas and papajoetalk.com. He hosts the “J-Team Radio Show” at AM 980 WCAP and www.jteamradio.com. Email John at MoloriMedia@aol.com.