Projo Sports Blog

By Mark Whicker
The Orange County Register

Maybe he is just a comet in pigtails.

Maybe he will have come and gone so quickly that he won't leave a physical trace on the Dodgers. No spring training locker. No record-book notations. Maybe not even a trophy.

But some space travelers don't have to pitch a tent. Manny Ramirez, this jocular alien who has landed in left field, will not be forgotten by the emerging Dodgers who have watched him, heeded him, laughed with him and, in the process, witnessed him.

"There are a lot of good players in this game," said Ned Colletti, the Dodgers' general manager who has a good chance to be next year's Dodgers' general manager, because he brought Ramirez at the end of July.

"But there are very few great players. And when you have one of them, you see what difference it makes."

The numbers told Colletti what kind of production was coming. Seeing it four times a game is a different sensation.

Ramirez's OPS (on-base plus slugging) is a ridiculous 1.244 for the Dodgers. He's been on base 49.3 percent of the time. He has 49 RBIs eight fewer than Jeff Kent in 259 fewer at bats and his 16 homers are second on the club already. All that came in 48 games, and the Dodgers won 27 of them.

They roll toward the playoffs with a two-time World Series outfielder, a former AL batting and home run and RBI champion hitting fourth. The same team that shrank from the .500 mark in July sees little reason to fear anything.

Ramirez is impulsive, an entertainer, a clown and sometimes a lethal distraction. What he tries to hide is his rapt professionalism. Shortly after he came to L.A., he gathered Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, James Loney, etc. He pulled up his chair to lockers, talked to teammate clusters, shared footnotes from his eight 35-homer seasons, 12 100-RBI seasons.

Ramirez also reminded the Dodgers about the verb in "play ball." They had been grumpy sardines in their archaic clubhouse, and the only piece of equipment that seemed to consistently work was their treadmill. Ramirez had come from Boston, where every inning is analyzed like the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was ready to perform. L.A. was ready to be entertained.

When Ramirez sees a pitcher who throws tantalizingly low strikes, he's likely to yell, "They're gonna need a new ball."

When he hits a home run off said pitcher, he comes into the dugout and is likely to exclaim, "How does he do it? He did it again! They better get a new ball."

The Dodgers know that Manny's laughter is day to day, and that he bailed himself out of Boston by basically refusing to play, since the Red Sox were slow in committing to a new contract and slower in actually trading him.

Those issues are reserved for the winter. On field level, Ramirez is and has usually been fine.

Boston general manager Theo Epstein began soliciting bids for Ramirez two years ago. He talked with

Colletti for a while, but nothing happened.

In the '06 instructional league, Colletti asked special assistant Bill Mueller about his former Boston teammate. Mueller gave the thumbs-up.

Then came the alarms of July. The Dodgers were making their own calls, seeking Pittsburgh shortstop Jack Wilson. At one point Epstein thought he had a three-way deal with the Pirates and Florida, but the Marlins didn't want to give up outfielder Jeremy Hermida and Class A slugger Michael Stanton, a former USC football signee.

When that blew up, Epstein called Colletti. The reports were that Boston asked for Matt Kemp and then

Andre Ethier, with no assurance that the Dodgers would have Ramirez past October.

Frank McCourt, the Dodgers owner, had thrown money at Jason Schmidt and Andruw Jones and watched it vanish. He was as gun-shy as a Wall Street fund manager.

When he was reassured, the balls fell into the right slots: The Red Sox got Jason Bay from Pittsburgh to replace Ramirez, the Pirates got reliever Craig Hansen and outfielder Brandon Moss from Boston, and then got Andy LaRoche and minor league pitcher Bryan Morris from L.A.

It could be argued that the Dodgers paid a heftier price for Casey Blake, since Cleveland wouldn't make the deal without reliever Jon Meloan and catcher Angel Santana, both good bets to make it.

The deal happened on a Thursday and Ramirez played in L.A. the next day. He also called Colletti and began haggling about uniform numbers.

"He couldn't have 24 because it was Walter Alston's, and then he wanted Fernando Valenzuela's 34, and that wasn't happening either, so he settled on 99," Colletti said.
That won't be the last time Ramirez asks for the maximum. If life on Planet Manny lasts only two months, at least the Dodgers made the one giant leap.

 Tags  Boston Red Sox Los Angeles Dodgers Manny Ramirez

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