Daily Archives: October 2, 2008

Over at ESPN.com, Bill Simmons has a long, rambling, often entertaining and insightful piece on Manny Ramirez.  You have to wade through a lot of words to get the nuggets of gold, but they are there.  I like how Simmons writes from the perspective of a fan, and I admire that he’s not afraid to criticize ESPN personalities like Peter Gammons.  He is a conversational writer, not lean or succint.  But part of the fun in reading him are the tangents, to see how he ties it all together.  He’s like a late-night underground FM DJ from another era–he riffs:

How much does Manny understand in general? He’s dumb enough to leave uncashed paychecks sitting around and smart enough to earn those checks in the first place. Dumb enough to get seduced by Boras, smart enough to heed his advice. Dumb enough to burn bridges in Boston, smart enough to get what he wanted in the end. Dumb enough to betray his old team, smart enough to embrace his new one. He’s unredeeming in every way until you add up every little moment that made you like him in the first place. Then he’s not so bad. (I swear, this makes sense if you’re me.) And so I refuse to blame him for what happened.³⁹ The one thing I learned from 2001 to 2008 was that Manny judged life by simple things: hits, home runs, salaries, fancy cars, even the efficient way someone set up a pitching machine. When he’s unhappy, he can’t hide it. When he’s happy, he can’t hide it. He could never fathom spending $20 million a year, but he knows it’s the number he should make. He didn’t take it personally that the Red Sox never picked up his 2009 option, just that they didn’t care whether he stayed or left. He moved from a one-bedroom condo to a presidential suite at the fanciest hotel in town, liked living in both places … and if that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know, then I give up.

So, how will this play out? I see Manny leading the Dodgers to the 2008 World Series, breaking their hearts and donning pinstripes next season. He won’t feel bad, because he’s Manny. The L.A. fans will feel bad. I will feel worse. It will be the single most painful sports transaction of my lifetime. It will make me question why I follow sports at all, why we spend so much time caring about people who don’t care about us. I don’t want to hear Manny booed at Fenway. I don’t want to root against him. I don’t want to hold a grudge. I don’t want to hear the "Mah-knee! Mah-knee!" chant echoing through the new Stadium. I am not ready for any of it. You love sports most when you’re 16, then you love it a little bit less every year. And it happens because of things like this. Like Manny breaking the hearts of everyone in Boston because his agent wanted to get paid, then Manny landing in New York because the Yanks offered the most money.

And when it happens, his new teammates will spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure him out. They will like him. They will make fun of him. They will ride his hot streaks for weeks at a time. Within a few months, they might even swipe his credit card for a night on the town, planning to charge drinks to their idiot teammate all night. Someone else will get stuck with the bill. Manny will drink for free. Everyone will have a good laugh, and they will never underestimate Manny Ramirez again.

And while we are talking baseball legends, let’s go back to Scott Raab, writing about Don Zimmer in Esquire circa 2001:

Zimmer managed Tom Yawkey’s Red Sox from 1976 to 1980. Between parties, the Boston media and fans roasted him without mercy.

"Every day," Zim says. "I left the ballpark one night, and sittin’ right by the dugout is my wife and my daughter–she lives up in New Hampshire, but it’s only, like, forty-five minutes north, and I’m drivin’ her up to her house. My wife’s sittin’ in the front, and my daughter’s in the back and she’s cryin’. I turned around and said, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ She said, ‘Daddy, I’m so tired of people booin’ you in this town, and I’m worried that yer gonna get fired.’

"I said, ‘Don’t go to the game no more. Stay home. If it’s gonna bother ya, stay home.’

"Don’t tell me it didn’t hurt–day after day, hour after hour, the same shit. It’s gotta bother ya. But it’s baseball. If you don’t like it, get out. Get a job. That’s the way I looked at it. And that’s the way it was."

There is old school as a slogan of self-advertisement and then there is old school as the baseball way of life Zimmer still loves too much to leave behind.

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My previews of today’s playoff games are up over at SI.com. The short version: the Rays have a significant home-field advantage, the Brewers must win today behind CC Sabathia, and the Cubs are in big trouble.

By Perry Barber

Mr. Baseball

Until he suffered a debilitating heart attack two years ago at age eighty, Arthur Richman was probably the oldest active man in baseball. He spent more than sixty years total as an award-winning sportswriter and columnist for the Daily Mirror and other New York newspapers, traveling secretary for the Mets, then senior advisor and vice-president of media relations for the Yankees, starting in 1990. I was introduced to him in 1983 by Dennis D’Agostino, the Mets’ assistant P.R. director at the time, now a respected author and sports statistician.

Arthur’s sixteen-year tenure with the Yankees was marked by both elation and turmoil. His showdowns with Steinbrenner were legendary, and he used to regale me with tales of how they would yell and scream at each other over some mishegos, then George would “fire” him and Arthur would just show up at work the next day, both of them acting as if nothing had happened, best friends forever.

His office looked out over the field behind the press area where the writers and announcers are stationed during games. Decking its walls were hundreds of signed photos of him and his deceased brother Milton, who is in the writers’ wing of the Hall of Fame, with practically every famous person who ever lived. Arthur liked to joke that he was the only Jew who could get you an audience with the Pope! Books, media guides, Yankee give-aways, hats, baseballs, bobblehead dolls, and more lay stacked up in piles everywhere. His desk was always cluttered with notes of thanks from people for whom he had done something wonderful, or requests for help getting tickets or an audience with a player, all of which he did his best to facilitate. He was always so busy checking in with the beat writers and columnists that he could never sit still and watch a game for long.

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I thought David Cone was one of the bright spots in the YES booth this year, didn’t you?  He improved steadily as the season progressed and I hope to hear more of him next year.

Hey, ever read Scott Raab’s Esquire piece on Cone back in ’99?  Raab caught up with Cone during srping training and the article was a good one: check it out.  My favorite part centers around Cone’s anxiety about leaving the game:

"I’ll miss having that ball in my hand," he says, sitting in the clubhouse before practice. "I’m going to have trouble with it, emotionally. I’d like to say, ‘Hey, I’m a little more well-adjusted than that — I have a future and I have a mind and I have things to look forward to,’ but to me it’s just about…I love to pitch so much."

…"I love being out there on the mound with the ball in my hand. I can control the game. I’m out there. No clock — nothing happens until I throw that thing. Nothing happens. I love that feeling."

Something furrows Cone’s brow and drops his voice just then, something few men — athletes or not — give voice to: fear.

"Maybe I should’ve left after last year," he says quietly, "but I’m not ready. It scares me."

Oh, and of course, there is this too:

I depart the clubhouse just in time to see Don Zimmer, the Yankees’ sixty-eight-year-old bench coach, through the doorway of the coaches’ locker room, buck naked. You can call yourself a baseball fan, make the pilgrimage to Cooperstown, and hock your grandma’s silver to buy a Mark McGwire rookie card, but you don’t truly know baseball until you’ve seen Don Zimmer’s cascade of flesh, led southward by the dowsing rod of his manhood.  

Manager Joe Torre, talking to a gaggle of reporters in the hallway outside his office, catches the same panorama and winces. "I’m sorry I turned around," he says.

Zimmer was at the track yesterday when Joe Torre called him. Perfect.

Both Manny Ramirez and Jason Bay went deep last night helping their teams, the Dodgers and Red Sox respectively, win Game One of the ALDS.  Ramirez’s dinger was one of those Are You Kidding Me? shots.  He swung at a pitch only Yogi Berra or Roberto Clemente or Vlad Guerrero could love, and golfed it into the bleachers at Wrigley.  The great ballpark in Chicago was almost silent during the last couple of innings, a hundred years of knowing, inevitable dread overwhelming the positive vibes.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox beat the Angels, again, prompting me to wonder if the Angels are men or

It’s only one game, but still.  The Angels need to make this a series.  C’mon you Halos, get it together.