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Scatterbrained 'Sports Guy' needs some Ritalin
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Self-proclaimed "Sports Guy" (photo courtesy of Deadspin.com)
ESPN.com's self proclaimed "Sports Guy" Bill Simmons has completely lost his journalistic bearings. He is known to write as if he is just another die-hard, couch potato sports fan who has an opinion and wants to be heard. Simmons' sarcastic writing style makes most ESPN.com readers laugh, which can't be said for most sportswriters. Unfortunately, Simmons has spun out of control and is now like a sitcom that doesn't know when to quit. Jerry Seinfeld saw that the writers were really stretching it towards the end to come up with thirty minutes of funny television. Well, Simmons may want to use his newly acquired LA connections to obtain Jerry's phone number and seek some much-needed advice.
Yesterday, Simmons' Manny Ramirez story was the ESPN.com homepage focus. The nine thousand-nine hundred-seventy-one word rant was all over the map with very little train of thought. Granted, losing focus is one of Simmons' self-admitted tendencies, but normally the rant is about one-tenth of the length of this newest piece.
The confusion begins right at the start of the piece when he tells a long-winded story about how while he was writing for "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in 2003, he passed up the opportunity to go drinking with Manny and Papi in LA. Basically, the story ends up that Manny bounced on a bill and Simmons' writer buddy picked up an $860 tab. This story has no relevance to the remaining eight thousand+ words of the piece. From there Simmons starts to make a point that this summer's most recent Manny drama, which led to his departure, was not entirely Manny's fault. Most level-headed fans know that in any messy divorce there are always multiple parties to blame (see Brett Favre). Simmons starts to make the point that Scott Boras was the mastermind behind this Manny saga, and that his name should have been dragged through the mud, along with his clients, in the Boston media and with the organization. It is fair enough to say that Boras probably was pushing Manny to, well, just be Manny. After all, Boras is a greedy agent who wanted to get paid for dealing with the little kid that is Manny Ramirez. There is no denying this point, it has been beaten to a pulp by WEEI, Peter Gammons, Buster Olney, Tim Kurkjian, and every other sports media outlet in the country. Simmons was confused as to why Boras wasn't attacked more? Why didn't the team blame him and go after him?
This question arises at the start of Simmons' piece, is dropped for a few thousand words, then brought up again. Unfortunately he doesn't need to spend so much time on this. This can be answered in bullet points:
- Theo Epstein and the Red Sox have a good relationship with Boras, which many other teams and general managers cannot say. They'd like to keep it that way for negotiation purposes.
- The Red Sox currently have a handful of Boras clients on their roster including Jacoby Ellsbury and Jason Varitek. Ellsbury makes a shade over $400K a year and will eventually be seeking to get a raise. Varitek is a free agent after this year and the Sox would like to keep him as cheap as possible.
- Boras represents a lot of ballplayers, many of whom are probably on the Red Sox radar this upcoming free agent season and future free agent seasons.
Simmons goes on to question why Red Sox management would not discuss extending Manny or talk to him about 2009 and beyond. Than he questions why they never suspended Manny in the past or even this year when he was throwing punches at teammates and pushing senior citizens to the ground. The latter may have something to do with the former. Why would the Red Sox throw $20M or $40M at the start of the season to a guy who has been a major hassle in the clubhouse for the previous seven seasons? Add in the fact that Manny was coming off a season in which he had his lowest home run total and OPS since his rookie season and lowest RBI total since 1997. To top it off, Manny is thirty-six years old and giving $20M to a thirty-six-year-old Manny isn't the same as giving $20M to a twenty-eight-year-old Manny like they did in 2001.
Simmons jumps around for a bit again and then comes back to who else was to blame for Manny's departure. He writes that Manny got along with the "Idiots" on the 2004 Curse-ending squad. He loved Johnny Damon, Kevin Millar, Derek Lowe, Bill Mueller, Orlando Cabrera, Pedro Martinez, and Bronson Arroyo. Well, it just so happens that none of those players play for the Boston Red Sox anymore. Simmons contends that the new team is a bunch of "prep school"-looking kids and that doesn't mesh well with Manny and his dreads.
Is Simmons blaming the Red Sox for getting younger, developing their farm system, and correctly evaluating talent? Isn't this what Major League organizations are supposed to do?
It's not like any of the aforementioned have gone on to win World Series and MVP awards elsewhere. The fact that Manny doesn't mesh well with this current squad probably was a determining factor as to why Theo and Company did not want to extend Manny past this season without living through a season where the core of the team would be young players. The Sox thought that guys like Dustin Pedroia, Jonathan Papelbon, Jon Lester, Kevin Youkilis, Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buccholz, Manny Delcarmen, Jed Lowry, and Justin Masterson were much more important to the organization in the long run than Manny.
So now in true Simmons fashion I will get back to the point of why the Red Sox never suspended Manny in previous seasons, or more importantly in this drama-filled summer. Simmons answers this question without even realizing it. He talks about how Manny was a guy that the Red Sox and every other team knew was a different character. They had to treat him much different then the twenty-four other players on the team. Part of this special treatment was not to suspend him because Manny would view a suspension as a reward. He constantly wanted time off and took time off whenever he could. A suspension would have been a vacation and not the slap on the wrist like it was for other players. A fine would have done nothing either because, as Simmons points out, Manny was clueless about money. He left $900K in uncashed paychecks stuffed in his locker with his jock for weeks without noticing. Thus fining and suspending Manny weren't punishments to him, but rather punishments to the rest of the organization. If Manny did get offended by the team's actions then he would just dog it like he had done so many times including this year.
Simmons ultimately proves that Manny was to blame in the end and the "Sports Guy" doesn't even realize he is doing it. He writes about how Manny is just being Manny and this is how he should be judged. That's fine. The Red Sox paid Manny $160M over eight seasons to be Manny and don't owe him a cent more. They made him the second-highest-paid baseball player in the game for eight seasons and put up with all of his antics because on the field he made up for it. They put up with it because he made other guys in the lineup look better including his friend Big Papi. Unfortunately Big Papi has been injury-prone and has lost some power and may not be as vital to this offense as he was a few years back. Just as Manny has proved he can still be great when he wants to be, the Sox leftover "prep school" punks can too.
Without Manny on the squad Dustin Pedroia made a run at the batting title and will be in the top three in MVP voting. Without Manny Jed Lowry subbed in for Julio Lugo and gave the Red Sox a legitimate shortstop in the field and at the plate. Without Manny his replacement Jason Bay hit nine home runs and thirty-seven RBIs in the final two months of the season. Without Manny, Jacoby Ellsbury broke out of his season-long funk and batted well above .300 and continued to swipe bases. Without Manny, his sparring partner, Kevin Youkilis, hit eleven home runs and had forty-five RBIs in the final two months of the season. Without Manny Jon Lester, Jonathan Papelbon, Justin Masterson, and Manny Delcarmen rose up and helped the Sox through the final stretch of the season. Most importantly, without Manny, the Red Sox won thirty-three of their final fifty-two games and made the postseason. This is something that was in limbo when Manny was still on Yawkey Way.
Ultimately the Boston Red Sox and their fans owe Manny Ramirez nothing but a thank you for the two World Series, hysterical outtakes, and of course the enormous numbers he put up in a Sox uniform. Manny may owe the Red Sox for making him one of the highest-paid players in the game when no one else would. Remember the Sox stuck Manny out there for anyone's taking a few years back and no one thought he was worth it. Manny may also want to thank the fans for overlooking his aloofness and his inexcusable actions and for continuing to chant his name and buy his jerseys.
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