MLB

Let’s All Enjoy Bill Plaschke’s Scathing Farewell To Manny Ramirez

Manny Ramirez has made a few fine entrances in his storied career, but he’s never been known to as one to make graceful exits. So would anyone believe his inevitable departure from Los Angeles would be any different?

Certainly not Los Angeles Times columnist and “Around the Horn” contributor Bill Plaschke, who penned a scathing (though even-handed) critique in which he felt no need to formally bid Mannywood adieu…since Plaschke felt he had checked out before his 50- game suspension for use of performance-enhancing drugs in 2009.

Plaschke wonders aloud, “how do you say goodbye to someone who has been gone for 16 months?”, ascribing to him only “occasional lucky moment[s] when a fat pitch hit his slow bat” over the last season and change. His bizarre ejection after just one pitch Sunday was the final, final straw in which Manny announced to the world that he had for all intents and purposed placed himself on waivers in Tinseltown.

Plaschke’s vitriol has plenty of support. He contends that Manny basically brought the Dodgers’ ten successful weeks at the close of the 2008 season (including batting .520 in eight playoff games), prompting a suffocating two-year, $45 million deal. The Dodgers’ best days in the Manny era came while he was suspended early in the 2009 season; if anything, they came hurtling back to earth when he returned to the lineup. This year’s unmitigated disaster of injuries and inconsistency has not only hurt their record, but also correlated in a lack of development of some of the team’s allegedly talented youngsters (see Kemp, Matt).

This isn’t the first time Manny Being Manny (or as Plaschke prefers, “Badly Being Badly”) and his shenanigans have drawn the ire of the LA Times columnist. But before we write this one off as Plaschke carrying a grudge, keep in mind that ESPN’s Jayson Stark arrived at many of the same conclusion, calling Manny’s knack for alienation a “gift he just keeps on giving”.

Meanwhile, The Chicago Tribune’s David Haugh greeted the slugger with a reserved column with a wonderful, “Yeah, but…” of title: “Ramirez a dog, but bravo for Williams’ dogged effort to boost club.” (We give him a point for the insult, but a definite deduction for the pun.)

We’re not expecting a pennant race to inspire any semblance of Manny’s heroic deeds of yesteryear. We’re just glad he keeps bouncing around the nation’s largest media markets (look out, Philadelphia; you’re next!) to we can keep writing about him.

Photo Via. Follow my petulant Twitter account @sportsdoctomd.