We're only two days into the week and we see Shank kicking Tom Brady when he's down, and for his second act he's
gonna pull a few punches with former Red Sox left fielder Manny Ramirez:
Manny Ramirez is apologetic, contrite, and renewed by his faith
All these years later, Manny Ramirez wants you to know that he loves you and that he is sorry for mistakes he made while playing in Boston.
He is sorry he knocked down Red Sox traveling secretary Jack McCormick over a ticket issue when the Sox were in Houston in 2008. He is sorry for the way he shot his way out of town and got himself traded to the Dodgers later that season. He is sorry he got popped for PEDs three times.
“It’s a mistake,’’ Manny said of his failed drug tests. “It’s like Barry [Bonds], Alex [Rodriguez], and everybody that was in that [Mitchell] Report. We made mistakes. I cannot go back and change it. I think it’s going to be good for young players to see what happened in that time. But when you’re good, you’re good. Those things don’t make you a better hitter.’’
That's as harsh ash Shank gets in the column about Manny. A few sentences later the irony meter exploded:
…
Manny signed an eight-year, $160 million contract with the Red Sox before the 2001 season and made good on 7½ seasons of the deal. He was a latter-day Jimmie Foxx, good for about .312, 40 homers, and 120 RBIs every year. He was MVP of the World Series when the Sox broke the Curse of the Bambino in 2004. Paired with David Ortiz, he gave the Sox a Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig combo.
But he also was goofy. Fans loved it most of the time, but “Manny being Manny” sometimes triggered headaches for teammates, managers, and owners.
Readers need an
occasional reminder or two or
even three in order to keep the record straight - Shank was no friend of Manny Ramirez, until now.
A Red Sox fan site I still frequent had a term the blog author frequently used called MUMS (made-up Manny shit). Media personnel like CHB would string together a narrative about Ramirez doing something unbelievable, shameful, or loathsome, but often a little research quickly proved that it only served to sell papers, a 21st century version of "yellow journalism." Ramirez was arguably the best right-handed batter in team history and the mediots treated him like garbage.
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