Manny Ramirez: Sort of a dick

October 17th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

Normally, I love athlete celebrations of all shapes, sizes, and electronic persuasions. Not only do they not get me all bothered like 90 percent of the world’s analysts, I usually enjoy them. Sports are fun, they are entertainment, and such minor tauntings serve as handy little reminders of that fact.

Still: Manny Ramirez is sort of being a dick.

What is certain, however, is that those three blasts looked almost ridiculously inadequate against the magnitude of Cleveland’s lead. To make matters worse, Ramirez, after his breathtaking 451-foot tee shot over the center field fence, had one of his vain, oblivious Manny-being-Manny moments. With his team still losing by four and its season in jeopardy, Ramirez posed for several seconds at home plate with both arms over his head, just as he did in a now-well-known photograph of his walk-off homer in Game 2 of the Division Series against the Angels.

It doesn’t really matter to me that Manny was winning or losing — that was a huge home run, and deserved some sort of emotion — but it’s just that Manny took sooooo looooooong to get over himself. How has no one thrown at him yet? Not that I’m condoning that … it’s just that baseball players are usually the most sensitive nanny-boys on the planet, and they do not enjoy being shown up.

Then again, a conversation with my girlfriend last night raised a pretty good point:

Me: Man, what a shot. Manny is going to get his head taken off if he’s not careful.
Girlfriend, looking up from a magazine: Really? Why?
Me: Well, look at that. He’s just sort of standing there forever; that’s really not cool.
Girlfriend: Good for him. He hit a home run.
Me: Yeah, but the Indians are not gonna not like that.
Girlfriend: Well then they shouldn’t pitch him strikes!

Excellent point.

Manny Ramirez and Julian Tavarez got rather cuddly

May 8th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanR

Here’s Manny Ramirez giving Julian Tavarez a nice little massage on the top of his dome. Cute, really.

These NESN Red Sox announcers sound like a good duo. If you remember, they also had quite a hilarious take on the whole pizza-throwing incident at Fenway earlier this year. I wish I had the opportunity to hear them more often, or that they announced for the White Sox instead of these oftentimes aloof fellows I’m subjected to on a regular basis.

(Via Sox and Dogs, Ballhype and FanHouse. Oh, and if you’re looking for more words penned by PostmanR today, head over to the FanHouse for this, this, this and this. I could get used to this blogging thing, I tell ya.)

Manny Ramirez is selling his grill on eBay

March 20th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanR

No dude, not that kind of grill. This kind of grill:

It’s going for $4,800 at the moment and here’s what the man himself has to say about it:

Hi, I’m Manny Ramirez. I bought this AMAZING grill for about $4,000 and I used it once… But I never have the time to use it because I am always on the road. I would love to sell it and you will get an autographed ball signed by me =] Enjoy it, Manny Ramirez.

I can’t wait for this to blow up even more and have the price top out at more than one million. (All fake bids, of course.) You can ask Sarah Spain about that one.

If nothing else, this just further proves athletes are normal people like us. You know, they show up to work late and pee in odd places.

AMAZING!

(First seen at: Can’t Stop The Bleeding. Thanks to Matt W. for the link.)

Things come apart

August 29th, 2006 | Posted by PostmanE

I can still kind of remember when the Red Sox seemed completely, totally in control of their own situation. Happy, actually, to have such a solid group in a solid place in the solid American League. Contentment, it felt, was abounding.

Now, well - not so much.

With Ortiz struggling against heart palpitations, the Sox were dealt another blow today, as Manny Ramirez and Wily Mo Pena (man, I wish my name was Wily Mo), were taken to the hospital themselves, struck with “gray-area” injuries, or so says Theo.

Now, I have no room to talk here - the Cubs are long gone, and tonight’s loss pretty much sealed the deal that I will not be paying attention any more this season - but the Sox are a walking caricature of dissapointing. That five-game sweep from the Yankees, well, there’s your turning point. But if the Red Sox can’t stop the bleeding sometime soon, that sweep will be simply another point in the bulleted list of this season’s long, slow decline.