BOSTON. When the Red Sox returned to Boston last night from a road trip that saw outfielder Manny Ramirez join baseball's elite 500 home run club at Baltimore's Camden Yards, the slugger seemed distant, his mind elsewhere, as he was greeted by fans at Logan Airport. "I got a promise to keep," was all he would say to a reporter who thrust a microphone in his face, paraphrasing Robert Frost, whom Ramirez adopted as his idol after discovering the flinty New England poet had urged readers to take the road less traveled.
Ramirez and Frost: The poet had fewer strikeouts, but also a lower OBP.
Ramirez was deeply moved by a visit to Baltimore's St. Jude's Childrens Hospital, where he met ten year-old Timmy Kavanaugh who suffers from Osgood Schlatter's Disease, a knee ailment that primarily afflicts young boys. Kavanaugh was unimpressed by the slugging outfielder's five hundredth home run--"Any mook can take some steroids and do that!" Timmy yelled as Ramirez walked by his bed--and the two struck up a conversation.
Ouch!
As Ramirez prepared to go, he asked if there was anything he could do to ease the boy's suffering. Kavanaugh closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and in a voice that was barely a whisper, said "Could you--run out a ground ball for me?"
"There's a ground ball to short--Manny watches it go . . ."
"Sure, kid," Ramirez replied, his voice betraying emotion. "I can't do it," the boy continued, tears filling his eyes. "I want you to do it for me."
"What's Manny doing?"
So groundskeepers were surprised this morning when they found Ramirez harnessed to a Fenway Park lawnmower, pulling the bulky implement around the base path to strengthen his hamstrings in anticipation of an all-out sprint down the first base line the next time he hits an infield grounder.
"Run, Manny, run!"
"There's no doubt Manny can do it physically," said manager Terry Francona. "He just needs to focus on the job in front of him when he doesn't hit a home run and like, you know, start running."
But his teammates aren't so sure. "If I made $18 million dollars a year," said backup catcher Kevin Cash, who is not related to the currency Ramirez is paid with, "I'd need a lot of time to figure out what to spend it on."
Manny and A-Rod have almost identical strike-out rates, except Manny has a higher career average and OBP.
Manny isn't paid to run out first base, to steal bases, he isn't paid to pretend he's Ted Williams. He's paid to be himself, one of the best hitters of our time, and one of the best defensive* LF men to play LF in front of the Green Monster
The sad part about the story is that it is absolutely true. Imagine what a great player Manny would be if he only hustled all the time. I blame Manny's coaches for tolerating it. He has a gift for hitting and coaches tolerate him because he can rake. What a shame! I always remember him cutting off Damon's throw from about 60 feet away as we cut to Ray Bolger. I could while away the hours, conferrin' with the flowers......
I checked with Fox Sports. They said it's okay to include sick kids as long as they're fictional. Osgood Schlatter's Disease is pretty benign. A friend of mine had it growing up. Some days he could play baseball, some days his knee hurt--that's about the extent of the suffering.
Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of "The Year of the Gerbil: How the Yankees Won (and the Red Sox Lost) the Greatest Pennant Race Ever," a history of the 1978 AL East pennant race, and a number of plays, including "Number One Hockey Mom," "Please, Pope," and "What Mickey Belle Isle Told You," a trilogy about hockey (JAC Publishing). His work is available on Amazon Shorts (at 49 cents a dowload), and he writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
