The April 23, 2007 edition of The New Yorker features a lengthy profile of, gulp, Manny Ramirez. What’s next? A piece about Helen Mirren in Car & Driver? Kevin Federline in Vanity Fair? Kelly Ripa in Sports Illustrated? Sanjaya in Esquire? The Books for Dummies series in Harper’s? Henry Rollins in The New Republic? Anyway, the piece, “Waiting For Manny”, by Ben McGrath, has some intriguing (and amusing) stuff:
McGrath on the Manny persona: “He is perhaps the closest thing in contemporary professional sports to a folk hero, an unpredictable public figure about relatively little is actually known, but whose exploits, on and off the field, are recounted endlessly, with each addition punctuated by a shrug and the observation that it’s just ‘Manny being Manny.’”
Manny to McGrath: “I’m here,” he said. “I get paid to play baseball. That’s why I’m here. That’s it. What else can I say.”
Dan Shaughnessy: “It’s just impossible to insult the fans if you’re that good. It’s the equivalent of the beautiful woman who’s loved by all the guys regardless of anything else she might contribute.”
Yet Another Cleveland Indian Tale: “As big-league rookies, they (Ramirez and Julian Tavarez) asked the newspaper reporter Sheldon Ocker if they could borrow sixty thousand dollars. ‘We were in Kansas City,’ Ocker recalls. ‘I reached into my pocket, and I’m like, I don’t have that much.’ Manny says, ‘How about thirty thousand?’ ‘Each of them wanted to buy a Harley.’”
Manny, Forever late in Spring & Winter, Forever early in Summer & Fall: “ A running joke in Boston has it that none of Ramirez’s coaches know when he gets to the ballpark in the morning, because he’s always there (if sometimes napping) when they arrive. His punctuality does not extend into the off-season, however, the length of which varies on whether you ask the team or Ramirez.”
Julian Taverez: “There’s a bunch of humans out there, but to Manny, he’s the only human.”
Unnamed Red Sox boss: “ (Manny is)… affably apathetic”
Big Papi to McGrath: “When I asked his teammate David Ortiz, himself a borderline folk hero, how he would describe Ramirez, he replied, ‘As a crazy motherfucker.’ Then he pointed at my notebook and said, ‘You can write it down just like that: ‘David Ortiz says Manny is a crazy motherfucker. That guy, he’s in his own world, on his own planet. Totally different human being than everyone else.’”
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The story goes that when Manny was with Cleveland, the Indians had him tested for Attention Deficit Disorder. Years later with the Sox, Manny was asked if had indeed been tested for ADD. Manny could not remember if he had been tested or not.
Hey Josh Beckett! A-Rod is looking pretty comfortable over the plate. It is time for a little chin music.
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