Gammons damns Manny's grand plans

God spoke today and condemned Manny Ramirez for his recent insubordination, all but sealing Boston's Village Idiot a ticket out of town by the end of this most recent firestorm. God in this case would be Peter Gammons, so nicknamed by my boys Urs and Hevy because of his brilliant service to the game of baseball for the last five decades. Gammons, the Hall of Fame baseball writer for the Boston Globe and espn.com, crushed Ramirez in a scathing piece that was published on the main page for all to see. This was the type of insider stuff that you hear behind closed doors as a person who covers the team, the conspiracy theory about Manny covering his declining ability to hit a good fastball by conveniently being hurt and asking out of the line-up against righty flamethrowers Joba Chamberlain (twice), Felix Hernandez (twice), Edinson Volquez and Justin Verlander. Ramirez let some other poor soul like Brandon Moss or Coco Crisp go out and crush their own batting averages against arrays of filth that very few pitchers possess. Ramirez said this weekend that he would agree to a trade if Boston was able to put one together, waving his 10-5 rights (10 years in the bigs, five years with the same team) to veto a deal and making himself a free agent at the end of the season. All of the bitching about the Red Sox not picking up the first of Ramirez's two $20 million options would cease and he would be someone else's headache for the rest of his career. Gammons implied that some of Manny's teammates might finally welcome the move, tiring of the circus act that results in added heat around their lockers and a distraction that they don't need playing in one of the league's biggest fishbowls. The fact that Ramirez dogs it on ground balls, saunters after balls in the outfield, takes days off due to phantom injuries, demands trades every seasons, routinely shows up late to training camp and is frequently out of shape goes largely ignored by Pink Hat Nation. All we ever hear is about how great Ramirez's production is, about how he has made David Ortiz into the destructive force at the plate that he is. A quick newsflash to everyone -- this isn't 2002 anymore. Ramirez will be 37 in May and, as his own actions have shown, doesn't believe he can stand up to the elite's blistering heat at the plate anymore. He's cowering in the shadows while attempting to convince himself and his potential suitors that he's still worth one more huge contract. I'm reminded of a line from Pulp Fiction while I watch all of this unfold, from no less a superstar than The Wolf himself. Harvey Keitel dominated the movie in all of five minutes thanks to his stage presence, and he dropped an absolute gem on Vincent Vega at one point that applies perfectly to Ramirez -- 'Just because you are a character, it doesn't mean that you have character.' Manny being Manny might be cute and cuddly to some people. His peeing in a cup inside The Wall and high-fiving fans after catching flyballs might make some people laugh, and you think it's all part of the act. The foolishness has gotten in the way of the fact that Manny is a shell of a human being who has you all seeing something that's not there. Let's hope he's making some other fan base laugh next year.