Once Again, The CHB is Not Very Hanley

Hyperbole reigns today.

Writing on Hanley Ramirez, The CHB asserts: "In a single season he made himself New England sports public enemy No. 1. He vaulted past the ghosts of Grady Little, Carl Everett, Jose Canseco, and Carl Crawford and took a seat alongside despised Boston opponents like Matt Cook, Alex Rodriguez, and Roger Goodell."

Wrong. So much went south with the Sox in 2015, it would be irresponsible, let alone false, to claim fans held Hanley to blame more than anyone else. In fact The CHB himself spent far more time mocking John Henry than he did any of the players, saying his payroll management was turning the Sox into Kansas City-on-the-Charles, a move that backfired -- "Royally," shall we say? -- when KC won the World Series. In the wake of this, Ramirez was an afterthought.

But pretenders must pretend, right?

So now, per Shank, Hanley -- and keep in mind, he's a minority -- dogged it on the field (conveniently ignoring he hit 19 HRs and slugged nearly .500 for the first half of the season before badly injuring his shoulder), and the Red Sox played "respectable baseball" once Ramirez was shelved for good (conveniently ignoring that just a few months back The CHB was discounting it as a "lost summer of meaningless games").

Here are the questions The CHB intimates he asks Ramirez:

• "Why do you think folks believe you don’t care?" 
• "Why does everyone blame you?"

Straw man arguments, one and all. It's Day 3 of Spring Training and The CHB is already in mid-season form.