Manny: No Matter What You Don't Say, I Love You

It's a habit I have a hard time breaking. I don't know why I bother, but for some reason, I still check out Dirt Dogs daily. Most of the time, I find myself shaking my head and mumbling about how I shouldn't bother. Some days, I get a good laugh out of the whole ordeal. Today, I was annoyed.

More needless Manny bashing. Come on, I know Manny left town the wrong way, but do real Red Sox fans really hate him? Some people I know are done with Manny. I've fluctuated between hating Manny and loving him, but only because I was so angry that he was running himself out of town. I don't care what anyone says. I am a Manny fan. I will always be a Manny fan. The dude helped us win 2 World Series championships, and he didn't go to the Yankees. In my book, that's good enough reason to always cheer for the guy. It makes me sad to see so many people hating him for all the wrong reasons. I acknowledge that there are 'right' reasons for people to hate him, but it's the wrong ones that kill me.

For example, when I went on Dirt Dogs today, I see a picture of Manny, with the headline "He Hate Me." This linked to an article by the ever fickle T. J. Simers... which you can go directly to via this link in case you want to avoid DD, which I completely do not blame you for.

I'm going to spoil it for you. All those things that are credited to Manny Ramirez, with a picture showing Manuel Aristides Ramirez, were used by Dirt Dogs to rile up Sox fans for when Manny comes back to town. But if the jerks who ran that site actually bothered to read the article, they would have gotten to this line:

So we all say goodbye to Mountaineer jockey Emanuel Ramirez, known around the track as Manny Ramirez — as good a time as any of us can recall having with Manny Ramirez.

Maybe I'm falling into the trap. All I know about Simers is that he was once clamoring to kiss Manny's ass, and lately he hasn't seemed to like him too much. Actually, I know I'm falling into the trap. Simers wants people to talk about his articles. Fine. It worked. What pisses me off is that this is exactly the kind of thing that will get those fairweather fans sitting in my favorite ballpark booing Manny extra loudly when he returns. Man, when the Boston media hates someone, they just can't let it go. This isn't a surprise to me, but it disappoints me every day.

Hopefully, on June 18th, I won't be the only one giving Manny Ramirez, the baseball player, a standing ovation. I don't care what happened in the past. For what he helped us accomplish, he deserves it.