David Wells, as interviewed post-game on NESN last night (from the Boston Globe’s Amalie Benjamin)
”I didn’t know until we hit in the bottom of the inning and there’s no Manny,” Wells said. ”The guy’s messing with my cake. I want to try to get a ring, man. If he’s not out there, that creates a problem. And I don’t know the situation. Whatever it is, he better have a great excuse because we need Manny Ramirez in the lineup. I don’t care what’s going on. This team needs him.
”If he’s going to come out and say he needs another day off, that’s not going to sit well with a lot of guys. There’s no question. . . . It’s selfish for him not to step up. Listen, we’ve got a couple guys hurt. We need you in there. His impact in that is tremendous. The [opposing] pitchers are going, ‘Oh boy. What do we throw this guy?’ He’s hitting everything. For Manny not to step up, I think that was selfish on his part.”
Indeed, if only Manny were capable of “stepping up” the way Boomer did in Game 5 of the 2003 World Series.
“Hey! That guy’s messing with my cake!” shall henceforth become the abuse I yell at Wells every time he sulks when Tito banishes him from the mound in the 6th. In fact, I’m going to take “’That guy’s messing with my cake!” on a trial run around the office today and see how it flies with my colleagues. Thanks for bringing this to everyones full attention CTSB; I would have been sad not to have this Wellsian phrase to lob around.