(the carefree Mr. Ramirez)

YAHOO sports today is all over Manny Ramirez for merely voicing my own thoughts about the Red Sox. Who cares? YAHOO’s Tim Brown, a CSTB competitor and shill for the East Coast Media Bias, disaproves:

“If it doesn’t happen, who cares?” Ramirez said Wednesday afternoon. “There’s always next year. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

Presumably, this will not be the precise sentiment with which Terry Francona sends his men onto Jacobs Field for Game 5. The organization and its city stowed the wait-’til-next-year routine with the 2004 Idiots.

Who cares?

The 24 guys around him. His manager. His owner. The people who carve off a bit of paycheck to squeeze into those old, narrow box seats and chant his name every night.

They probably care.

The Indians, I’m guessing, care.

There are, however, two riders that need to be attached to Ramirez’s flippancy.

He does not speak for the Red Sox clubhouse or the Red Sox organization. He goes years without speaking publicly at all, a practice the Red Sox might now consider encouraging.

And he will show up with his bat and his act at game time Thursday, hitting as though he cares.

As usual, there is an honest innocence to Ramirez and his merry methods, along the lines of his arms-in-the-air, stroll-to-first observance of Tuesday night’s home run, a home run viewed initially as probably meaningless, viewed later as entirely meaningless.