Redsoxchickie: Just This Side of Stalking

Will the Manny trade end up like Nomar’s or Jeff Bagwell’s?

What the hell happened?

One minute Manny’s all happy go lucky, the next he’s been body snatched by Carl Everett. The season began so promising. He was talking to the media more than ever and had been his usual playful self, then all of a sudden he’s fighting his own teammates in the dugout, and pushing a near 60 year old traveling secretary to the ground. Had he attacked a water cooler with an umbrella he would’ve been Britney Spears!

Was I surprised Manny got traded?

One thing that Theo and the new ownership has made clear is that they will only put up with ballplayers acting like petulant children for so long, no matter how loved by the fans or how valuable their slugging percentage is. Nomar was sulking in 2004 and Theo had no problem pulling the trigger on that trade because it was what was best for the team. Manny was playing games. No question about it, he was screwing his own teammates to try to make the ownership do what he wanted them to do like a five year old in a toy store. Clearly Manny missed a few chapters of “How To Win Over Your Teammates and Influence Ownership in Your Contract Year”. Theo called his bluff and now Manny’s working on his tan in LA. This oddly seems like the perfect place for him. And ironically he’ll be playing with Nomar.

Will I miss Manny?

I’ll miss his pure swing, his kooky smile, and all his weird antics in the dugout. I’ll never forget the catch, high five, throw out double play in Baltimore this year. I’ll never forget that 2004 was ‘destination’. And I’ll never forget his hanging out inside the Green Monster. What won’t I miss? Not running out ground balls. I really won’t miss having to go through his temper tantrums every other year. My final breaking moment with Manny was the game last week on the west coast where we were getting our asses kicked and had won something like 1 game in the past 5 and he dove for a ball, then decided to rollover, then crawl to the ball, THEN rolls over it and finally gets up and gets the ball. The worst part was the fact he did the whole thing laughing, making it look even more like he did the whole slapstick routine on purpose. I was literally disgusted by that. I couldn’t believe a grown man would act like then when he’s getting paid $20 million a year, and let down his teammates.

So what did we get in return?

I feel like I just returned something at Best Buy, got charged with a 50% restocking fee and had to buy a crappier version of what I just had because it’s all they had in stock. We got someone younger, who can hit from what I have heard and seen so far. But he’s not Manny. You no longer have the one-two punch that struck fear into the heart of every pitcher in the league when they had Ortiz and Manny. We probably picked up better defense and Bay’s more likely to steal a base since he doesn’t have 18 pound of dreads weighing him down. Bay, however, is Canadian. We all know how I feel about Canada. In the end, we’re weaker without Manny. I just hope the trade becomes the same kind of catalyst the Nomar relocation was in 2004.

Will it work?

There’s no way to tell until the rest of the season plays out. If we don’t win the World Series then everyone will be saying, “We should have kept him!” If we do win another ring, we’ll saying, “We knew it was going to work!” The only thing I’m certain of is George Steinbrenner is drooling at the prospect of getting Manny on the Yankees in 2009. Then again, after seeing Steinbrenner at the All-Star game, he’s drooling all the time.