Manny Ramirez was out in left field at Fenway Park nearly four hours before Game 6 Saturday, wearing a do-rag while catching fly balls that deflected off the Green Monster.
For all his faults, the enigmatic Red Sox slugger does indeed work at his craft. And with a .609 on-base percentage and .882 slugging percentage going into Game 6, he has proved again that he’s a big-game player.
Ramirez’s personality quirks are simply part of the package. In Boston, they call it “Manny being Manny.”
“Manny’s different,” said Indians outfielder Kenny Lofton, a former teammate. “But he’s a gamer, and he’ll always come to play. He’s a good guy to play with. You like to see guys show their personalities. When he came up [in Cleveland], he was shy. But he has opened up, except when he sees you guys.”
Ramirez doesn’t mind standing out in the crowd.
According to a recent profile on Ramirez in the New Yorker, he once asked the Red Sox to play a song by rapper Styles P called “Good Times” over the Fenway Park sound system before one of his at-bats.
The raw lyrics, however, promoted drug use, and the song was ditched quickly.
In 2003, Red Sox senior adviser Bill James conducted a study for the team owners in which he pointed out 53 instances of Red Sox players altering a game by not hustling. Ramirez was responsible for 29 of those incidents.
Teammate David Ortiz believes Ramirez’s remark last week in which he said it wouldn’t be “the end of the world” if Boston was eliminated was misinterpreted by the media, particularly ESPN commentators.
“They had three football players who had no clue about baseball trying to say what Manny was saying,” Ortiz said. “Then John Kruk, [who] played baseball his whole life, he understands what Manny said.”
Ortiz was asked if Ramirez would continue talking.
“Hopefully,” Ortiz said. “Unless somebody [goofs] up once again.”
Fenway’s quirks
Boston’s home-field advantage is one of the biggest in baseball because of the size of the ballpark, the strange angles of the outfield walls and the closeness of the fans.
“You get to the seventh inning and the opposing pitcher throws ball one, and you can feel the place shake,” Boston manager Terry Francona said. “I remember that as a visitor. There are not too many places in baseball where you really feel like that. Yankee Stadium can somewhat feel that way, but nothing like Fenway.”
Cleveland manager Eric Wedge wasn’t worried about the Fenway “advantage.”
“No, every ballpark has its nuances,” Wedge said. “Obviously there’s a lot of tradition here, but our kids have done a really good job of getting beyond that.”
