Manny Wins!

By a twist of fate, we happened to have tickets to today's Dodgers game. Unlike many of our fellow visitors to Dodger Stadium today, our tickets were purchased long before the trade that brought the Dodgers their new left fielder, Mr. Manuel Aristedes Ramirez. Last week's trade made us all the more eager to attend; Tessie was too excited to sleep last night, so she napped on the way to the game.

Manny has done a lot in a short time to "energize the fan base" as they say. Before the trade, the Dodgers were hovering around .500 in a division (the NL West) that can charitably be described as mediocre. Since the arrival of the Dreadlocked One (who, incidentally, will be required to adhere to his new team's more conservative tonsorial policy, um, eventually), local media have been going nuts with "Manny sightings" around town and ticket sales have picked up dramatically. Manny was acquired during a ten-game homestand; the average attendance for the pre-Manny games was a respectable 41,344, but with Manny, the Dodgers have averaged 54,252. (Capacity is 56,000. Put another way, Dodger Stadium was 97% full all weekend.)

Manny did not disappoint. By the fifth inning he was 3-for-3, a triple short of the cycle. He finished the day 4-for-5 (although I think his fourth hit should have been an error on the Arizona third baseman), and the Dodgers won, 9-3, on a sweltering day at the ballpark.

For now, the fans are happy. "Manny being Manny" may have been an act in Boston all along; today we saw a focused player who ran out ground balls and alertly reacted to other batters whether he was in the field or on the basepaths.

As a Red Sox and Dodgers fan, I am conflicted. Manny was frustrated by his contract with Boston, specifically the two option years the Red Sox held at $20 million each, that could have kept him there until 2010. Instead of taking it out on his agent (you know, the guy actually responsible for creating that situation), he took it out on his team. I believe he tried to undermine his own value to the Red Sox, through a series of calculated actions, with the intent that they would find him unworthy of $20 million for next year. That would make Manny a free agent, free to negotiate and sign with any other team. Obviously, he thinks he'll get more than $20 million on the open market next year.

He may actually be worth more. He has amazing baseball skills, as he has demonstrated here over the last three days. But how can he be worth anything as a teammate when he has put his future paycheck ahead of his current team's success? After watching him today, I am convinced that he was holding back in Boston, and I am convinced they did the right thing in trading him. Manny joins a long list of player who left the Red Sox too early, but he left them no other choice.

Either that, or National League pitching just plain stinks.

Tessie knows none of this. She is simply happy to see her favorite player, even if she doesn't fully appreciate the mercenary characteristics that brought him here for her amusement. After the eighth inning, when got his fourth hit, he was replaced in left field by Juan Pierre. So Manny's day was done, as ours soon would be. Walking back to the car, we asked Tessie "Who won the game?"

"Manny won!" she replied.