MLB

Hanley Ramirez Is Apparently VERY Difficult To Get Along With

Remember the Hanley Ramirez controversy earlier this year? We do. And if the rumblings that came out then weren’t enough to indicate that Ramirez might not be an ideal teammate, we now have an anecdote about not getting pizza to strengthen the case!

Is started innocently enough. Lester and Ramirez, both All-Stars this year, used to play together in the minors when they were both Red Sox prospects (Ramirez got traded away in the Josh Beckett deal). A reporter asked Lester an innocuous question about whether he and Ramirez ever went out and got pizza, for example, and imagined the possibility of becoming All-Stars one day. Dreamy, idealistic, head-in-the-clouds-type stuff. Lester then brought everyone back down to earth.

“I’d have a better chance of being struck by lightning than me and him getting a pizza together. You can take that for what it’s worth. But there was no chance on God’s green earth that I was getting a pizza with him.”

Whoa.

What spurred on his candor? The USA Today article linked above wondered if maybe Lester just really hates pizza. Fanhouse pointed to the Boston Herald’s Steve Buckley, who wondered if maybe a competitor as intense as Lester just doesn’t have much love for any of his opponents.

Both articles, though, make mention of Ramirez’ supposed maturity issues when he was an up-and-coming prospect, and considering that it seems like those issues have yet to subside even today, we’d bet it had a lot to do with that. Ramirez, unfortunately, just doesn’t seem like the easiest guy to get along with – not just for Jon Lester.

Oh well. It’s like we said ourselves – the most naturally gifted players can’t all be Kevin Durants.

H/T The Big Lead

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