Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Manny Being Shoeless?

Tim McCarver vs. Manny Ramirez: It'd be a little more exciting if, I don't know, Tim didn't currently look like this...

McCarver, and others, have pointed to Ramirez's numbers with the Dodgers, which are stunning: .397 after joining the Dodgers, with 17 home runs and 53 RBIs in 187 at-bats.

In his last month with Boston, Ramirez hit .347 with a .473 on-base percentage. But Ramirez has been dogged by allegations he didn't play hard and quit on his Red Sox teammates late in his tenure in Boston.

.347! Sure Manny was biding his time, just like those other .350 dive artists Chipper and Pujols.

It is hard to defend Manny: has there ever been a man so "mistreated" by a team that paid him a mint and treated him like a god. And whenever a ball goes to left field, Manny becomes the Two Face of defense-men, flipping a coin to see if he'll even bother running. But when a player gives you a .300 Batting Average over a season of play, does anyone really have a right to complain.

It reminded me of another master of throwing a game.

I'm not saying Joe Jackson didn't line his pocket with thousands of Arnold Rothstein's greenbacks. His World Series stats, however, make you wish more players took bribes:

.375 BA. .563 SLG. 6 RBI

Players get on streaks when they move to new cities, hot, cold, and subzero (Andruw Jones, take a bow). Who knows if Manny was holding back in Boston. What we do know: Hitting .300 in the majors is remarkable. And .400 is godlike. Luckily, we got the latter.

2 comments:

Steve Sax said...

Totally agree with you, Delino: Kevin Costner clearly phoned it in, on movies like Waterworld, Open Range, and Swing Vote. What a slacker.

Nice piece, Delino!

Delino DeShields, Sr said...

It reminded me of the when the movie ""THE PROGRAM" got recut cause a "bunch of kids" tried that lying in traffic bit and got flattened. Those "kids" were average age 22.

Manny "holding back" in Boston. Those stats don't really support it.

Manny being an arrogant dick in Boston. Most definitely.