"If Manny has to urinate in the scoreboard every once in a while, we can live with that."
-Terry Francona
At least one Boston team won't have to spend February without its star.
While Patrice Bergeron continues to sit on injured reserve, Kevin Garnett keeps nursing a strained abdominal muscle and Tom Brady (I can only assume) spends the better part of a month crying in Gisele's arms over the tragedy that is "18-1,"there is one piece of good news on the horizon.
Today is the much-anticipated Feb. 20. Red Sox position players are set to report to camp in Fort Myers today - the world champions will be officially reunited for the first time.
Manny Ramirez insists that he will be among them.
And call me crazy, but I believe him. Ramirez has been known throughout his seven years in Boston for flaking on team policies and playing by his own rules, and he made good on that reputation last season by neglecting to tell anyone besides Julian Tavarez that he wasn't planning on showing up before March. And perhaps when you're a sure first-ballot Hall of Famer, team rules are the last thing on your mind.
Manny has never been one to adhere to social norms. We laughed when, early last season, the $160 million man attempted to sell a grill on eBay for $4,800, then told the Globe the grill wasn't his, and then flip-flopped to the Herald to say it was. We groaned when his habit of Green Monster bathroom breaks almost kept him off the field in the middle of a play. And we screamed in vain at our TV sets every time he failed to run out a grounder, muffed a routine fly ball or made any of the other numerous lapses in judgment that have led Boston to describe his antics as simply "Manny being Manny."
The "we" in each case, of course, is me. But as the Sox' left fielder sets out for camp today, even I feel a need to come to his defense.
Manny Ramirez is the most misunderstood player in baseball today. His detractors have thrown around every negative adjective imaginable to describe his character - everything from "arrogant" to "selfish" to "lazy." But what people so often fail to realize is that in a way, Manny is one of the most dedicated players the Red Sox have ever seen.
He's a modern-day Ted Williams - he cares about one thing and one thing only: hitting. He's the first of the Sox to arrive at Fenway every morning and the last to leave every night. (Some teammates have joked that he probably lives in the team's clubhouse.) He takes more swings in the batting cages than anyone, and he never stops working on improving himself as a hitter.
He arrived in Arizona in December to start his offseason training regimen, in which he relentlessly lifted, ran and, according to one trainer, benched 110 pounds with one arm. In an era when so many of the game's best sluggers are taking shortcuts, Manny is bulking up the hard way.
This is a contract year for Manny - the final year of the eight-year, $160 million deal he signed back in 2001. The Sox have $20 million options on 2009 and 2010, and Manny, who supposedly wants to finish his career in Boston, will need a monster year to earn that payday.
He's not about to command $20 million a year on the open market, not at his age. But the Red Sox will pay him that money if he can produce - if they want to keep him, they'll pay whatever it takes to keep him out of New York (either borough).
His last contract year, 2000 in Cleveland, yielded an absurd stat line of .351/.457/.697 - all career highs. Granted, he was 28 then, and now, he'll be 36 on May 30. But he's a 36-year-old with a whole lot to prove, especially after posting statistically the worst season of his career last year, not to mention following that up with his "Losing wouldn't be the end of the world" speech when the Sox went down three games to one to Cleveland in the ALCS.
We're about to see what a recommitted Manny looks like, and I can think of about 29 teams in baseball that should be terrified. The talent is obviously still there. The man bounced back from a strained oblique last summer to hit .389 in limited September action, and then hit .348 with four homers in a 14-game postseason.
At a rare postseason press conference after Game 2 of the ALDS against the Angels, minutes after driving his only walk-off home run in a Red Sox uniform over the Coke bottles in his beloved left field, Manny repeatedly showed us the confidence he's always had. After twice pointing out in no complex terms that "I'm one of the best hitters in the game," he then gave us what would become the motto of his postseason run:
"When you don't feel good, and you still get hits, that's when you know you a bad man."
Manny was a bad man last October. But imagine what could happen if he shows up today in better shape than ever. When he does feel good, he'll only get badder.
The bottom line is that I'm predicting a monster season for Manny - as close as any 36-year-old not named Barry Bonds can come to a "career year." He's currently sitting on 490 career home runs - I'm guessing he shatters the 500 barrier before May 1. He's so far never finished higher than third in an MVP race - I see that changing this fall. And until now, he's never been big on showing up to Fort Myers on time, either. But that one, he'll take care of today. That's the first step.
Manny Ramirez is about to lead the Red Sox to their first World Series repeat since the Wilson presidency. Let the man pee where he wants.
Evans Clinchy is a junior majoring in English. He can be reached at Evans.Clinchy@tufts.edu.
