Is $4 million too much for the White Sox to wager on the chance a healthy/motivated Manny Ramirez might help them overtake Minnesota over the season’s final 5 weeks? Ab-so-fucking-lutely, opines Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal, who celebrates his reincarnation as Gerry Callahan by mentioning that Ramirez, “no longer hits for the same power, is a plodder on the bases., and some with the Dodgers think he is out of shape.” And to top it all off, he’s a bad person.
Manny’s Hall of Fame chances took a dramatic hit when he received a 50-game suspension last season for using performance-enhancing drugs. But even if you remove PEDs from of the equation, he flunks the “character, integrity and sportsmanship” criteria ” badly.
He quit on the Red Sox. He quit on the Dodgers. The Hall includes its share of miscreants, but Manny has routinely engaged in conduct detrimental to his team.
True, these were relatively isolated incidents. Some statistical analysts might look at his career numbers and say, “What more can you want?” My answer: Basic professionalism.
I generally do not give much consideration to the Hall™s subjective criteria, applying it positively (as in the case of Andre Dawson) but not negatively. Albert Belle was an exception, for he embarrassed the sport with his behavior. Manny, for different offenses, will fall into the same category.
Yes, he produced great numbers. Yes, he was a joy to watch. But certain standards of decency apply.
How did Manny quit on the Dodgers? I’m very confused by these reports. For instance, Torre sat him this past week because management didn’t want him to get hurt. That’s pretty obvious. Is he being blamed for that? Or is the ejection supposed to the equivalent of when he struck out against the great closer ever a few years back?
He’s played in no more than 60 games this season, so obviously Rosenthal is questioning the legitimacy of those injuries. And Ken wouldn’t be alone in calling Sunday’s ejection an intentional move on Manny’s part to beat the traffic.
Manny has no shortage of issues, but attempting to paint him with the same brush as Albert Belle, as a player or person, is pretty silly.