The Curse of the Rambino?

Look on the bright side, or at least one of the bright sides, if you were that badly fed up with the manchild and his act. This time, the big Boston Red Sox bombardier who'd sulked, pouted, loafed, contempted, and disgusted his way out of town didn't end up going to the South Bronx.

Otherwise, admit it. If you're as longtime a citizen of Red Sox Nation as I, the phrase crept for even a nanosecond into the folds of your mind, when the news arrived that Manchild Ramirez had been stripped of his Red Sox silks at last, by way of a three-way swap making a Los Angeles Dodger of him and a Red Sox out of Jason Bay.

It crept there because, for all his misbehaviors and likely clubhouse divisiveness, of the sort that's crept slowly back into public revelation over the past few days, you know that with Manchild the Olde Towne Team won two World Series in four seasons. Just the way they had done as the 1920 season approached, and as a different Red Sox ownership had had it up to there and beyond with a similarly petulant star with a hunger for money and an inability to comport himself to within at least minimal expectations of civil or committed behavior.

So the Red Sox, from enough of the clubhouse to enough of the front office, finally had it with Manchild Being Manchild. Just as the Red Sox, from enough of the clubhouse to enough of the front office, once finally had it with the Babe Being the Babe. The only difference between the two endings is that they sent Manchild to be Manchild in Los Angeles while still the defending World Series champions. They sent the Babe to be the Babe in New York after a season as defending World Series champions. The similarities are striking enough otherwise if you care to look closely.

First, a reading from the scene of the crime, if such is what you'd consider it, courtesy of the man who elevated The Curse of the Bambino from a fancifully logical notion (advanced first, October 26, 1986, by George Vecsey of the New York Times) to a catechism.

During the All-Star break, Manny made remarks critical of Sox ownership regarding his past contract negotiations. Owner John W. Henry responded with an e-mail in which he said he was "personally offended."

Nine days ago, prior to the final game of a West Coast trip, Manny told Francona he was unable to play because of a previously unreported knee injury. The tipping point came one week ago when Manny pulled the same stunt before the first game of a three-game set with the Yankees.

That was it. The Sox decided they were done with him. They'd been Manny's prisoner too long. It was unanimous upstairs. Henry, Tom Werner, Larry Lucchino, Theo Epstein, and [Terry] Francona were all steamed. One teammate called Manny's bailout "a disgrace." The Sox sent him out for an MRI on both knees, then made sure the media knew he was not injured. They threatened to suspend Manny if he didn't play the next day. Manny played.

Then he started yapping. He said he was done with them. He said they didn't deserve him.

Theo and the minions went to work. Manny had stripped the Sox of most of their leverage, but they were intent on dealing him anyway. The Sox gave up a ton in this deal. They parted with their cleanup hitter. They gave up two prospects. They're paying Manny's salary. And they forfeited the two high draft picks they'd have gotten if they lost him to free agency. Bay is good, but he's not that good.

At the end, Manny didn't care about winning. He didn't care about anything except Manny and the ego-driven wallet measuring that motivates so many of today's superstars. He did the Sox no favors, shooting his way out of town, but he got what he wanted. He gets to play in Los Angeles for Joe Torre. He gets to work toward his next contract — money he'll never possibly have time to spend.

Ultimately, this trade is a demonstration of how badly Boston wanted to get rid of Manny. It wasn't about home runs or on-base percentage. But it had to be done out of fairness to the manager and the other 24 Red Sox players who are here to win.

— Dan Shaughnessy, "So Manny Memories," Boston Globe, July 31, 2008.

And if bits and pieces have seeped forth of late suggesting that Manchild's presence in the Red Sox clubhouse hasn't always been a case of a beloved if lunatic child eventually making his siblings remember why he's beloved in spite of his lunacy, perhaps few expressions could enunciate it better than that of Curt Schilling, whose spirit is never unwilling even if his body continues demanding, "Who, me?"

At the end of the day you're taking the field with a guy who doesn't want to play with you, doesn't want to be there, doesn't want to ... obviously effort-wise is just not there and that's disheartening and disappointing.

Would I be the only guy in the New England area that said no if I [thought it was time for Manchild to go]? I think I'm probably with the consensus. It's very obvious from anything you see or hear he doesn't want to be here. And anytime that there's a piece of the equation you have a problem, and then not trading and leaving him here is a problem because you don't know what you're going to get.

— Schilling, on WEEI's Dennis and Callahan Show.

Now, permit yourself to read from your ancient history, courtesy of a Boston scribe on a mission to make sense of what would come soon enough to seem the utmost nonsense in arterials not the Yankees'.

In fact, only two weeks ago the Boston Sunday Post gave a very plain as well as exclusive hint to its readers that [Babe] Ruth was on the baseball market, and that the New York Yankees would probably make an offer for him. Those nearest the Red Sox administration could see the handwriting on the wall when Babe, after leaving the Sox in the lurch at Washington late last September, jumped to the coast and forced the Boston management to endure censure and ridicule for his non-appearance in the lineup.

At that time it was felt that relations between the club and the heavy hitter were severely strained, and those who could read between the lines began to understand that Babe instead of proving the imagined bulwark of the Boston team was in reality proving a decided menace to the welfare of the team.

When even Ruth's fellow players began to complain and show their dissatisfaction over the privileges that Babe took without leave, the management was forced to the conclusion that with Ruth remaining a member of the team harmony in the Red Sox family was impossible.

When Ruth, refusing to abide by the conditions of the three-year contract signed by himself last spring, and in which he practically forced the management to concede him a salary of $10,000 per annum, sent that contract back to the team without word of any kind and then issued his ultimatum to the California writers, stating that he would not play under $20,000, President Frazee decided that the time had come for Ruth to pass on, and in consequence he began to give ear to the plea of the New York management, who have always been eager to get the home run hitter as a Polo Ground attraction.

— Paul H. Shannon, Boston Post, January 6, 1920.

So you succumbed even for the moment to the awful temptation. You allowed yourself for the slimmest of moments to ponder that from here the Red Sox's once surrealistically awful history — a history once garnished by more extraterrestrial disaster on the threshold of redemption than any baseball team should have had to endure and transcend — might begin to repeat itself, the missing factor being precisely how long before the gods would elect to wring the new cost from the Red Sox's skins.

There were all kinds of reasons to succumb. Including, perhaps, the point that the Red Sox as transdimensional tragedy provoked some of the game's most lyric literature, while the Red Sox as transdimensional twice-in-four World Series ring wearers provokes something quite the opposite, without half the self-deprecating wit and most of the lyricism.

But now it comes time to remind you of what is different. And it only begins with the fact that the Ruth sale was probably linchpinned by a feud between American League president Ban Johnson — whose thought that pitcher Carl Mays should have been suspended for jumping the Red Sox, rather than sold to the Yankees in advance of the Babe, precipitated a factional league split between Johnson's allies and the so-called Insurrectos (the Red Sox, the Yankees, and the Chicago White Sox) — and Frazee.

Because, this time, there's no feuding between American League factions over swap or sale or contract issues. This time, the Red Sox didn't telegraph, in fact or by implication, bigger moves by selling this or that key man in advance of the Manchild swap.

And, this time, there's no indication that the Red Sox's ownership has any plans to sell the club at all, never mind to the Bob Quinn-fronted syndicate which ended up providing the real Red Sox curse: boneheaded management that systematically stripped the Red Sox further of assets enough that might have kept them competitive even without the Babe. (Quick: Review the Yankee rosters of the Roaring Twenties and find how many former Red Sox ended up in The 'Stripes, one way or the other.)

The similarities also continue with a point that will precipitate such regret as embraces Red Sox Nation in the wake of the Manchild's departure for points West: he may well be one of the smartest hitters and the biggest jerk who ever wore the Red Sox uniform.

"Good hitters out there will [swing and miss pitches on purpose]," said Darrell Rasner, a Yankee pitcher who isn't exactly alone in glee that they won't have Manchild (and his 55 career bombs against the Empire Emeritus) to kick them around anymore. "Because you start to think, 'Oh, I've got the guy on this one.' Then you throw that pitch again, and, bam, it's gone."

I write as a man whose mind has been yanked into change. No, silly, not about Ramirez's smarts at the plate. Until now, however, I couldn't recall anything coming from the Manchild's rap sheet that might possibly inspire a myth that he once tried to hang his manager over the rear end of a speeding anything. Babe Ruth never actually did that to Miller Huggins, but the legend held tight enough for years enough, and the Babe committed enough atrocities against human civility without having to rest accused eternally of attempted manslaughter.

For all that he's quit on or ragged on his team or its administration, not even his worst enemy has ever accused the Manchild, that I could recall, of thinking aloud that there but for the lack of hitting against his own pitching staff might he have ended up with a league home run championship. Dick Stuart, slugging it out against Harmon Killebrew directly, on 1963's final weekend for the bomb title, after hitting two over the wall to Killebrew's five: "Hell, Killebrew had a distinct advantage. If I could have hit against our pitching staff, I'd have hit 10."

Nobody has ever caught the Manchild, that I could recall, refusing to curtain call or tip a cap after crossing the plate off a majestic launch, never mind gobbing one in the fans' direction after a roasting following a spell of less than sterling at-bats. That was Ted Williams's act. And nobody has ever caught the Manchild, that I could recall, yanking his crotch and yelling at the pitcher off whom he'd just hit another skyrocket. That was part of Carl Everett's style, at least when taking Jamie Moyer long distance.

And no one had any reason to charge, as best as I knew, that the 2004 World Series MVP, without whom the Olde Towne Team wouldn't have won the 2007 World Series as well, led or was a significant enough part of a team move to give the grounds crew pocket change and stiff the clubhouse people entirely when it came time to divide the World Series shares. Pitcher Bruce Hurst and infielder Marty Barrett ended up giving those people more money out of their own then-record-for-losing-clubs 1986 World Series shares.

Oh, yes. There's one more comparison between the Manchild and the Babe. They each have more World Series rings, won with and for the Red Sox, than Dr. Strangeglove, Teddy Ballgame, Snarling Carl, or any member of the 1986 Woe Sox. None of which acquitted either, in the end, when it came to whether they'd be the men least likely to inspire hearts and flowers in the Red Sox clubhouse any longer.

"Every year," said catcher Jason Varitek, after the Los Angeles Angels had waxed the Red Sox for a second consecutive series sweep and a seventh win in eight tries on the season to date, "this is like this. This is so out of our hands. And even this year it's out of our hands. I just think this team needs to take a step past that and focus on playing baseball. It's easy to point a finger that that is the issue. So the issue has to change in here."

And, so it has. Especially if you take the word of a Boston newspaper essayist, who notes that, in spring, when a group of cancer-stricken children sponsored by the Jimmy Fund made a trip to Fort Myers, Florida, and a group including most Red Sox players greeted and spent time enough with them, there was a missing Manchild among them.

The tent was no more than 90 feet from the ballpark, which means Ramirez could have been there in 5.7 seconds, even going his usual half-speed.

But he declined this year, just as he has declined for the last six. And, as always, no one was surprised. Why should he care about a bunch of sick teenagers when he doesn't care about his teammates or his manager or the fans who enabled him and apologized for him for 7 1/2 years?

Well, you can say goodbye to the bad guy now. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Maybe Jason Bay will not be quite the cleanup hitter that Ramirez was (then again, maybe he will be), but we know this much before he even takes the field for the Red Sox: he is a better fielder, a better baserunner, a better teammate, a better person.

He probably won't fake a knee injury, or slap a teammate, or throw a 64-year-old man to the ground because he couldn't make tickets magically appear. He won't give the manager ulcers or spit in the owners' eye or treat the paying customers like suckers.

Just a guess here, but the kids from the Jimmy Fund Clinic are making the trip to Chicago next week. Bay will probably say hello.

There was always something uneasy about the love and adoration that Red Sox fans showered on Ramirez. The hard-hitting half-wit was born with the ability to put a bat on ball better than most mortals, but that's where his virtues end. He doesn't play the game right. Too often he doesn't play the game hard. He cares about his contract and his hair and not much else.

He didn't care about the wounded troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center this past February. When most of his teammates, including all of the big stars, made the trip to Washington, he stayed behind. Probably no one on the team had the ability to make a down-on-his-luck Sox fan smile like Manny Ramirez did, but as usual, Ramirez couldn't be bothered. As usual, teammates, fans, and media made excuses for him. Again, the great hitter was allowed to be a rotten human being.

In a way, Ramirez represents the worst of professional sports — a man who is idolized because he has one, God-given physical skill. Some fans who would boo a player for popping up with the bases loaded had no problem cheering Ramirez days after he assaulted Red Sox traveling secretary Jack McCormick, a terrific gentleman who is almost 30 years older than the slugger.

According to his old high school coach, Ramirez promised to buy bats and balls and uniforms — things he could have gotten for free — for his needy alma mater. Last we checked, 17 years after he left school for the pros, the kids were still waiting. Their idol, their hero, the man who has made almost $200 million since he left George Washington High School in the Bronx, just couldn't be bothered.

Red Sox owners treated Manny the Mutt like Leona Helmsley treated her Maltese. This season, reigning National League MVP Jimmy Rollins has been benched twice by the Phillies for violating team rules. As far as we know, Manny has never been benched or suspended by the Sox. The owners literally knocked down walls for him, making the Sox clubhouse more comfortable for this spoiled child.

And how does he repay them for their love and loyalty? By calling them liars and backstabbers. By saying they don't deserve a player like him.

And in the end, he was right about that. The Red Sox deserve better, and yesterday they got that in Bay. Maybe not a better hitter, but a better all-around player and a much better teammate ... The team formerly known as Dem Bums just got the biggest bum of them all.

— Gerry Callahan, "No Dodging It," Boston Herald, August 1, 2008.

It hasn't changed, for reasons enunciated earlier, to the point that the Red Sox will prove to have spent the coming 84 years in the seventh dimension, branded yet again as the team that not only falls to the rocks below after reaching the threshold peak to the Promised Land, but finds a newer and less earthbound way to precipitate the fall.

For one thing, this time they traded the Manchild who had to go to someplace other than the Yankees. To the other league. To the Dodgers, who seem to love talking about their history without making much of one nowadays (credit Tracy Ringolsby for the locution), and who aren't going to go from here to win a 21st Century-record 37 pennants and 29 World Championships.

The Henry/Lucchino/Epstein regime isn't going to go from here to pass it on to the spiritual heirs to Bob Quinn and Tom Yawkey, ripping things apart, feeding someone else the keys to the Promised Land while saving the scraps for the Red Sox, before trying and failing to win with a crowd of sluggers, a lack of pitching, and an abundance of tunnel vision in the front office.

Manchild wins. It doesn't mean the Red Sox are guaranteed to lose. Even if the sight of Jason Bay checking in at the plate doesn't inspire enemy managers to order the free pass even with David Ortiz — who's likely to spend a little more walking time himself in the weeks to come, unless Jason Being Jason turns out to be a sleeper of a slugger beyond his seasonal statistical comparability to Manchild (which he might yet prove, based upon his early Red Sox performance papers) — the next man up.

It doesn't mean, going in, that the Red Sox future includes anything much resembling a future late throw from center inspiring charges of a shortstop holding the ball on the edge of the outfield grass; a lifting of an effective starter in the enemy ballpark with a pennant on the line; a speed merchant's collapse rounding third with a pennant race in the balance; a pinch-hitting for an effective relief pitcher; an eephus pitch getting vaporized for a Game Seven, two-run bomb, the night after an eleventh-hour bomb allows the Red Sox to play a World Series for one more day; a puny shortstop's single-game playoff waft over the Monster; a gimpy first baseman's ankles turning to a croquet wicket after a wild pitch that should have been scored a passed ball allows a tying run with the Red Sox a strike away from breaking a curse, actual or alleged; or, a tiring starter left in a hitter too long, leading to an epic relief duel into the extras, ended only by nondescript third baseman's first-pitch, leadoff launch into the left field seats for game, set, and the other guy's pennant.

I don't believe in curse. I believe you make your own destination.


— Manny Ramirez, just moments after copping the award as the 2004 World Series' Most Valuable Player.

The Manchild had his inspiring moments. But he isn't going to inspire a Curse of the Rambino.

We think.

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