Frankly, Ramirez has done some stupid things, and at times, he has played the game lazily, both on the bases and in the outfield. He also did his best to alienate some of his teammates with the Red Sox while treating the traveling secretary (I believe it was) like a piece of trash. Are we supposed to give Ramirez a free pass because he’s Latino? I don’t think that would be fair or just to do so.

There have been plenty of white guys who have wasted talent, too. I can think of Joe Pepitone and Kevin McReynolds and Dave Kingman right off without putting too much thought into it, too. Given more time, I could come up with a long list of white guys who played lazy and underachieved.

If you act like a knucklehead at times, you have to expect to get criticized for it.

On the relationship of race with Boston sports media in general, I recommend any of Howard Bryant’s fine writing on the subject.

[0] I think you’ve capture the subject just right, Emma. Its a lot of questions, and just asking them gets one thinking. That’s a very good thing.

If douche points were dollars Manny would be a billionaire. Sorry, but that’s the only legitimate narrative here.

Okay, there are other legitimate storylines. He was a tremendous talent whose abilities were sometimes overshadowed by his arrogant behavior, which, unfortunately, was not only inflicted upon himself.

I maintain his race and nationality have ZERO to do with what MOST SANE AND REASONABLE people think and say about him. I’m sorry, but Dominicans are beloved in this game by fans of every race, and nationality. (unlike Dominican-American centaurs like Alex Rodriguez who are still persecuted, unfortunately)

Racial or bigoted hatred of Manny is so illegitimate, and I would say, such a small part of the equation that it’s not worth legitimizing with serious consideration. There will always be bigoted assholes.

Thing is, I’ve yet to see a solid example of it brought forth.
Several Banterers have stated emphatically that he’s been victimized, or persecuted by the Boston sports media based on his race, but none of provided any specific examples. Not that I doubt them, mind you, but in my years of watching and discussing, and reading about Manny I’ve never come across a statement that struck me as racial bias, or some sort of slur against the Dominican Republic.

Manny’s douchiness transcends questions of race or bigotry in my opinion.

As with most discussions of race, my experience is that framing the issue in simplistic or binary terms (i.e., race either *is* or *is not* a factor) is always unproductive and facile. Your point is apt, no one (or a negligible few) actually “don’t like Manny because he is Dominican.” That’s nearly always a straw man.

Shades of grey, people, not binaries. (I know, I know, that’s a binary. Whatever.)

And some of the Mannyism is ok, even funny, such as going into the Green Monster. A baseball game is a performance, Manny could be entertaining. But shoving an old guy down is being a jerk, and basically accepting a strikeout from Mo because you’re mad you have to pinch hit on your day off is disrespectful of your manager, team and baseball.

So Manny’s complicated. Do one or two bad incidents make him ineligible for the HoF? I’m sure there’s more than one domestic abuser in there already. I’m not going to make steroid use by itself, in an unregulated era a necessary bar. So being on the 2003 list by itself I won’t make a litmus test. But there’s that, plus the 50 game suspension plus the new positive test plus some ugly behavior. It does mount up. Still not sure if it’s enough to outweigh his talent and hard work and results.

But we don’t realize it and the opinion gets formed, even in the mind consciously scrubbed of prejudice.

Cano has made some plays for which I don’t have a clear, direct understanding of his motive or intent. I have a sense that he’s not always paying attention. I’m reading body language, facial expressions, comparing to other players, with no real level of expertise for any of those things. Just the experience I had playing the game and then trying to compute how he could come up what he just did, and filling in so much of what I don’t know with unconscious stuff.

I don’t think that means we should stop questioning motive or guessing about a player’s inner being, but it should be well understood by the writers and the readers that it’s mostly bad guessing.