So, for fun on another baseball day off — they really did a nice job scheduling this ALCS didn’t they? — I want to break down the Indians and Red Sox a little bit. We’ll try to get to that this afternoon. But before we do that, let’s talk a little MannyBeingManny.
Thursday, with the score tied 1-1, and David Ortiz at first base, and the Red Sox perhaps beginning to get frustrated, MBM hit a long fly ball to right field. It did not look like anything special coming off the bat, and I’m pretty certain that MBM did not think he got it. He walked out of the batter’s box — he tends to do this all the time, but this was more the, “Awww man, I just missed that,” walk rather than the, “I am conquerer of all the land you see!” walk.
Anyway, MBM does not know his own strength. The ball carried and carried and carried until it either (A) Hit the very, very, very top of the wall at Jacobs Field and bounced back in or (B) slipped just over the wall and bounced back in. It was impossible to tell live. On television, live, it looked to me like it slipped over the wall. Blown up replays later seemed to indicate that it hit the tippy-top of the wall. For our purposes here, it doesn’t really matter. The umpires said it hit the top of the wall.
Well, Ortiz took off as soon as the ball was hit (there were two outs) and scored standing up. MBM, meanwhile, made it to first base. And that’s it. He had never really started running, and then he thought the ball was a home run and he actually went DOWN a gear. So because of a fairly appalling lack of hustle he had turned a double into a single. The announcers, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, went ape. Buck called it the longest single in baseball history. McCarver was so upset, he was sputtering. They could not believe that in an elimination game for the Red Sox that Ramirez would fart around and not hustle at all. They were beside themselves, especially McCarver. You would have thought MBM had just spit in the eye of the Queen of England.
Now, hey, I’m enough of a baseball traditionalist to be appalled myself by a grotesque lack of hustle. It drives me nuts to watch Waltzing Manny in action. But I also know: Those are aesthetics. It’s an accepted fact among baseball people that when it comes to MBM you put up with the atrocious moments to get the .313/.409/.593 that he gives you at the plate. You deal with his wild mood swings and bizarre choices because his batting comparables through age 35 include Frank Robinson, Mickey Mantle and Barry Bonds. You accept that he often won’t run out double play grounders and he will daydream in left field and he will have plenty of long singles through the course of the season — because you know that most of the time, that stuff won’t cost you games. It looks bad, sure. It can drive you crazy, absolutely. But at the end of the season, 40 homers, 40 doubles, 130 RBIs, 100 runs scored and a 150 OPS+ will make up for a whole lot.
Here’s my point: Buck and McCarver and other announcers generally get this. All through this postseason, they’ve been giggling about the MannyBeingManny stuff. They have talked constantly about how, despite the silly MBM act, he’s one of the great hitters in memory. They have defended some of his most absurd acts — throwing his hands up in the air after he hit a homer to make the score Cleveland 7, Boston 3; pointing at his teammates and giggling after he got on first base; telling reporters that if the Red Sox lose, well, who cares? They have generally seen and understood the big picture, that while MBM exasperates us baseball fans and offends our sensibilities, the guy hits the crap out of the ball.
BUT, when the moment came, the true MBM moment, they sounded as shrill and irritating as any DiMaggio-era fan griping about now nobody knows how to bunt these days. They fell for the trap. yes, MBM turned a double into a single. Yes, he lost his mind. Yes, he could have cost the Red Sox a run (probably not — Mike Lowell struck out to end the inning). Yes, it was precisely the wrong message to send to young baseball-playing kids out there. Yes, yes, yes. It was irritating (and hilarious) for me to watch too.
Still, what was the REAL story here? Manny Ramirez drove in what proved to be the game-winning run. He did something that, what, two or three right-handed hitters in baseball could have done (Pujols? Vlady?). He hit an opposite field bomb off C.C. Sabathia that scored Ortiz all the way from first base. He came through with the biggest hit of the night. He, as much as anybody (perhaps excepting Josh Beckett) sent this series back to Boston.
And the announcers missed it. Totally missed it. They didn’t even talk about the go-ahead run. What can you say? MannyBeingManny strikes again.
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14 Comments, Comment or Ping
Paul White
What he said.
Oct 19th, 2007
steve
what’s the deal Joe? these last two posts have been disturbingly short. i’d like my money back. but more than that, i want longer rants.
good points anyway, though… (and here’s to hoping that Carmona plunks MBM)
Oct 19th, 2007
Tim
They were equally shrill (or at least Buck was) about the home run trot during Game 4. I’m always glad to be able to watch games announced by Joe Buck, High Priest of Ethics. Interesting how he’s not quite as shrill when it comes to hawking beer or flogging his dead father’s memory for a (pun definitely intended) buck.
Oct 19th, 2007
RReebs
McCarver has become Andy Rooney. After the Manny single I was waiting for him to start complaining about gas costing more than $1.00, how kids wear their jeans too low and those darn kids who walk on his lawn.
Oct 19th, 2007
CBrown
Buck and McCarver have been missing the obvious for the better part of a decade.
In a related note, has anybody seen Scooter?
Oct 19th, 2007
Oddibe
I just read that McCarver will replace Keith Hernandez in the hair dye ads for “Just For Men” next year.
Actually, my favorite McCarver moment last night was when he began to read from the Chamber of Commerce brochure about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He said he spent several hours of his off day wandering around the place and wondering where the Devo exhibit was.
Why has Vin Scully not done a national broadcast since the 1989 NLCS? He has always been my favorite and it bugs me that an entire generation of fans outside of the LA area have never heard him call a game.
Oct 19th, 2007
Jim Haas
McCarver’s little soliloquy about the Rock and Roll Museum makes me want to never visit the place.
Second the motion re: Vin Scully.
Oct 19th, 2007
Jim Haas
And how does Josh Beckett manage to be cherubic, what with his round baby face, and yet have the look of an assassin. That was fun to watch.
::turns mute button on::
Oct 19th, 2007
steve
Jim - you’re right - I think it’s the goatee that completes the angel assassin look.
Oct 19th, 2007
ross
It’s weird. When I was young, I really liked McCarver. Loved his voice. The last 10 years or so have been awful.
What I find puzzling about that entire game last night is how Beckett can yell at K-Lo for dropping the bat at home plate, but Manny is free to pull his stunts all day long. What’s worse - Dropping the bat at home plate or standing and posing forever as your ball leaves (or doesn’t leave) the park?
I do enjoy the hell out of Manny, but if I was Carmona, I’d put one in his for the simple fact that Beckett was acting like such a whiner. And I like Beckett too.
Oct 19th, 2007
ross
Edit: put one in his “ear”
Love the blog Joe. Hope you keep it up!
Oct 19th, 2007
Paul
Or, as Bob Ryan in the Globe always describes a “Manny moment” as being “part of the package.” You get the hitting, clutch hitting and big bombs with the goofy baserunning, perfecting the art of cutting off the center-fielder’s throw to 2nd base thereby creating the “cut-off of the cut-off throw,” along with the somewhat tragic, definitely spooky penchant for his relatives to become ill, or in some cases die, at two times during the year: the beginning of spring training and the all-star break. It must be tough to be a member of the Ramirez clan and not become neurotic in April and July.
But come playoffs, there he is…a hitting savant who works at it. Look at his playoff numbers. It’s not fair to the opposing pitcher. The guy hits with two strikes like no one I’ve ever seen. I’m sure there are others who have played with such carefree abandon when facing strike 3 and fouling it off as if he’s out in the backyard knocking away his son’s whiffleball pitches until he gets the pitch he wants.
He’s blessed that for half of the year, he gets to play his favorite position — deep shortstop, thus relieving him from the extra jog into playing a normal left field. He’s got a nice lil “get-away” spot in the scoreboard when the stress levels of playing a kid’s game with a kid’s sense of whimsy become unbearable. (I still like to imagine that scene in “Slap Shot” where the Hanson brothers are playing race cars in their hotel room, and in my realistic imagination — there’s Manny racing his car with them.)
He’s a goof. He doesn’t do well as his own translator. In high school all he wanted to do was hit a baseball. He’d go to the diamond at 9 in the morning for a 4pm High School game, completely skipping a day of school because he was so excited to play baseball.
He’s a guy who knows that what he is doing is ultimately fun. He doesn’t fear losing a game, even if it be one that stops the season, because he knows there is next year. As we age, in most of our minds, we start to wonder how many more years are still available to our life. But those who are young, whether they are 7 yrs old or just going through life playing a kid’s game like a kid, see the years going on endlessly thru time.
Or they think they’ll quit after next season. Because that is so long and far away in the future.
So if you lose game 5 or game 6, doesn’t that mean more time for electric football, pull hockey and some outdoor hoops? Or whatever your Ritz-Carlton north tower penthouse apartment overlooking with unobstructed views of the city might contain (links if you want to virtual tour the home):
http://www.boston.com/realestate/galleries/ramirez/1.htm
http://re.boston.com/+Comshare/VUListing.asp?Lid=1750-1
Somehow he just likes Manny being Manny. Can’t say as he’s living the worst of all possible lives.
Oct 19th, 2007
Keith K.
Spouting off on Chief Wahoo gets you a thousand comments, while railing at Buck and McCarver results in a dozen or so. That’s about right, considering their relative importance. For some reason, the announcers don’t enrage me like they seem to do others.
At his peak, several years ago, McCarver was Baseball Prospectus or Baseball Tonight before those things were invented. He gave insights as to what was going on inside the game when the other jocks in the booth weren’t doing so. Now, the “inside baseball” inside baseball is more freely available to all of us, and his observations seem obvious in a John Madden sort of way.
Buck is better than people give him credit for. He is understated with a bit of humor, and he lets the game speak for itself when need be.
Oct 19th, 2007
Jason
On the claim of being the longest single in postseason history, King Kaufman offers a reality check: if a ball leaves the park but the runner passes another baserunner, it goes as a single. Robin Ventura had his famous “grand-slam single” in 1999. Another batter who had an out-of-the park single in the postseason? Tim McCarver.
And McCarver things Manny is a space cadet? What a maroon…
Oct 20th, 2007
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