THE CURSE OF THE MANNBINO BEGINS

The World Series is on, a splendid match-up between two young and hungry teams, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays, and the best team in baseball is home watching them on TV like the rest of us. Yes, the Boston Red Sox, a scary-good team that never quits, lost to the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Championship Series. The thinking here is the reason they were eliminated is because they traded away their best hitter, Manny Ramirez. Not only was Ramirez Boston's best hitter, but the best hitter in baseball for many years now. He was the man most responsible for getting the Cleveland Indians, of all teams, into 2 World Series in 1995 and 1997, and getting the Dodgers into the playoffs this year for the first time in 20 years, hitting .396 and driving in 53 runs in 53 games.

As for Boston, before they got Many Ramirez they had not won a World Series since 1918. In Ramirez' 6 1/2 season with the Red Sox, they won two of them in four years and were the team to beat this year. That is, until they traded him. Without his feared bat in the lineup, they became a team that was beaten. They placed second in their division to the Rays, a perennial loser until this year, getting into the playoffs as the wild card team. David Ortiz, called Big Papi when he teamed up with Ramirez to be the most potent # 3 and 4 hitting tandem in baseball, wasn't such a big deal without Manny behind him in the lineup. Opposing pitchers were quick to notice that and Ortiz had a quiet playoffs at the plate.

Ramirez' replacement, Jason Bay, played well but was no Manny Ramirez. Nobody is. A hitter of Ramirez' caliber comes along once in a generation, a man who's very presence in the lineup alters the opposition's game plan drastically. Having Manny in the lineup also improves the batting averages of the hitters around him, since they get more quality pitches to hit. The fact that Ramirez is a lifetime .314 hitter is amazing considering that pitchers rarely challenge him, attempting instead to pitch around him. In two rounds of playoffs with the Dodgers this year, he still managed to hit 4 home runs, one of them off a pitch near his ankles. He drove in 10 runs and scored 9, batting an amazing .533. Many teams will be lining up to offer this 36 year-old hitter tens of millions of dollars a year as a free agent this winter.

It is said the Red Sox got tired of the eccentric Ramirez, much as they tired of their star player in 1918, a pretty eccentric fellow himself. Maybe you've heard of him. His name was Babe Ruth. Made a big splash with the Yankees. Hit more home runs one year than the rest of the league combined. Changed baseball forever. 714 home runs and 96 pitching victories for his career. That Babe Ruth. He had pitched and hit Boston to World Series victories in 1916 and 1918. Then they traded him to the Yankees for the 1920 season and the rest was baseball immortality for one team, bitter mediocrity for the other. After he left it would be 2004 before the Red Sox won the World Series again, people calling it "The Curse of The Bambino." So, let's see, the Red Sox won in 2007, then traded Manny in 2008, so that means the Curse of the Mannbino ought to lift in 2092.

Which is probably all for the best. Boston fans have not known how to act in recent years. They had themselves a perfectly good sore loser identity forged over four generations of futility. Boston fans had a perverse pride in fielding some of the best teams ever to grace a baseball field but never to win a championship. Manny Ramirez came along and burst their bubble. In 2004 it was a huge miracle, the end of 86 years of close-but-no-cigar. Then the Red Sox became perennial contenders and in 2007 won it all again. Now Boston fans were really suffering an identity crisis. Winning really does not become these Bean Town Belligerents. There was no reason any longer for the chip on their shoulder, but they liked it there! A sigh of relief went up in Boston when the man threatening their eight decades of satisfied mediocrity and ingrained hostility was traded away. They can breathe easier now that the threat to their identity is gone. See you in the winner's circle in 85 years, Boston. Meanwhile, it must be good to be back to your old selves.