Wednesday, October 17, 2007

My Manny Theory

There seems to be all this mystery around Manny Ramirez's personality—to such a degree that some feel his behavior can only be captured via tautology: Manny being Manny. However, I think Manny told us everything we needed to know about him when he used Afroman's "Because I Got High" as his batting music. I think Manny's just a pothead. He gets high before batting practice, he gets high on off-days, he sneaks into the Monster to get high during the seventh-inning stretch. In this context, everything he does makes total sense. He's oblivious to everything that's happening around him yet he always seems cool with it, even when he's complaining. He shows up late a lot. He says things that only make sense to him. He has dreads.

But the ultimate Manny Being High moment came in last night's BOS-CLE game, when he hit a solo home run to put his team behind by four runs—and dropped his bat and threw his arms up in victory. Again, score after the home run: 7-3, Cleveland. But Manny only did what everyone does when they're high and they make a great ping-pong shot, or score a long TD in Madden: throw down your paddle, or Xbox controller, or—in Manny's case—bat, and throw up your arms in celebration. I've probably done this a thousand times, most recently after beating Stephen Fischbach at Buck Hunter at Doc's. It doesn't matter that the achievement has no larger significance—you have to let the world know what you just did. Yeah, Manny's home run didn't change the result of the game—but he just hit a home run! After two other guys hit home runs! Yes!!!

9 comments:

  1. He's probably celebrating the fact that he just reached 2000 in slugging percentage. And maybe, just maybe, we can make a game of this. Then he thought, oh yeah, we have manny delcarmen, and he through 2 strikes in 5 at bats and gave up 4 runs. let's just get high.

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  2. of course, he probably doesn't know the score... because he's already high.

    Someone please tell me why JD drew or Coco Crisp haven't been swapped for Jacoby Ellsbury who's plainly better than both. Or why youkilis hasn't been moved to give the bottom of the order some pop. Wakeup Terry Francona, the season is still going.

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  3. Tito's locked into "can't show weakness even if it means we lose" mode. There are 3 absolute outs in the Sox lineup right now: Coco, Lugo, and Pedroia. There are basically 3 more absolute outs in Lowell, Drew, and Varitek, but with the possibility of a nice hit once every 8 to 10 at bats. You can't fix all those guys, but you can get Elsbury in there for Coco and Cora in for Lugo...and against Sabathia, Kielty will be in for Drew. Despite the fact that Tito made such substitutions all year long, he can't now because it would be viewed as a panic move.

    By the way, Papi has been incredible this postseason. Even when he gets out he's hitting absolute screamers. After Beckett, he and Manny should be the 2 and 3 starters, cuz they're the only guys that have shown up for this series.

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  4. Yeah, even his outs are inches from extra base hits or full on homers. I disagree on pedroia. I feel like he's okay.

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  5. Isn't Dortiz carrying like a .840 average in the postseason this year? That's ungodly. I hate hate hate Boston, but it is nigh on impossible to deny Shrek his due.

    I do get to enjoy the fact that after "Boy Genius" Theo Epstein's 15 minute retirement, he promptly came back to acquire Coco Crisp, Julio Lugo, and J.D. Drew (FOR 70 MILLION DOLLARS!?).

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  6. Shrek. wow, that's dead on. as is your Epstein analysis. The most dangerous word in the sporting lexicon is "upside." followed quickly by "potential."

    witness the NFL draft and JD Drew's career.

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  7. I love Pedroia, but he's hitting like .167 in the postseason. His last at bat last night he finally hit the ball hard (spectacular catch by Asdrubal, brother of Hannibal), but otherwise he's completely lost right now. He's trying to pull balls he shouldn't, resulting in a lot of groundouts to 3B. When he tries to go the other way, he just ends up fouling it off. Give him a week and he'd be fine...unfortunately, he doesn't have a week.

    Doesn't Hafner have a similar nickname to Shrek? If he doesn't, he should. He looks like Vin Diesel crossed with a cartoon ogre.

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  8. I'm sorry, just look at the 4:20 mark of this and compare it to Manny. I'm sorry, that's definitive. And at the 4:20 mark!!! I retire from blogging.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBkxH2Uff-w

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  9. Or look at the 11:18 entry of this...

    http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/071016

    Not exactly the same, but, yeah, I think you've pretty much got Manny pegged.

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