(editor’s note : Mr. Campagna’s thoughts on the matter of Peter Gammons and Manny Ramirez have previously been posted as a blog entry to a notable social networking website. The following is republished with his kind consent).
Anybody who thinks the recent trade of Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers is a good deal obviously knows nothing about baseball or humanity for that matter. You probably also believe that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction as well.
Funny how the Red Sox “leaked” the fact that Manny pushed the traveling secretary and since then he has become the anti-christ. Every week something else was leaked or we were told how Manny wasn’t producing. All the while his numbers were going up while everyone else’s on the team was going down.
How are those errors piling up guys?
Oh yeah look at what a monster he is, he pushed Youk in the dugout. Funny how the players say it’s nothing and this goes on in the locker room all the time. This just happened to appear on camera. So yeah keep reminding us how evil he is.
Not like anyone has ever got in a shoving match at work.
Oh yeah and he takes days off. I have no problem with someone who plays 162 games a year taking themselves out of the line up. I suppose you’ve never called in sick when you weren’t. No you wouldn’t do that only evil Manny would. And I don’t care how much money your making.
Because he’s making 20 million he can’t be tired like everyone else on the planet?
About a month ago I remember hearing folks on NESN talk about how Manny takes pitches because he’s looking for his pitch. That’s why he’s a great hitter who is a first ballot hall of famer. Last week on, Red Sox owned, NESN I got to hear how he just took three straight pitches from Mariano Riviera on purpose.
No it couldn’t be because he didn’t see anything he could hit?
Today I got to listen to Peter Gammons, who by the way, is very close to the Red Sox front office and is in a band with Boy Wonder, Theo Epstein.
I got to hear him tell the world that Manny was the most useless player in baseball, who hated baseball, had no respect for the game like the real Red Sox of yore, has never produced for the team, was useless in the playoffs, had no impact on the world series wins, was only in baseball for money. Then Gammons saved his most brutal hatred for last.
That Manny would soon be under the same scrutiny as Mark McGuire for steroids!
This witch hunt to run Manny out of town was the most sickening thing I’ve ever seen the Red Sox do and I’m finally through.
It reminded me of the Bush administration making a case for war in Iraq. The last few weeks have left me with the same bad taste in my mouth as the weeks leading up to that war. I couldn’t believe people were buying this crap. Are Red Sox fans so dumb they’ll believe anything the press tells them? I guess so. After all these are the same folks who think people with pink Red Sox hats are ruining the game and can’t possibly be “real” fans. Oh yeah I forgot all you pink hat haters where filling the stands back in the day. The days when the team could hardly fill half of hallowed Fenway. Get over yourself.
I have never seen someone made to look like the most evil person on the planet.
Hey Peter, here’s some questions
1)Who was first at the park everyday watching tape and working on his game?
2)No respect for the game? How did that work out for the “respectful” sox players of yore? oh yeah that’s 86 years of no world series win.
How many rings does Manny have? Huh? Two? God forbid someone should have fun when there playing a GAME!
3)Ask David Ortiz how much Manny produced when teams start pitching around David now. Oh yeah you also brought up how two years ago Ortiz went to Manny to ask him to come back and play for the remaining weeks. Manny must have been doing something “productive” to have Ortiz come out for a visit.
Hey Peter good thing you brought that up two years after the fact. You wouldn’t have been “protecting” the Red Sox interests by not releasing this info…uhm…two years ago?
4)Yeah that’s right his stats must be wrong. He never produced in the Playoffs and World Series. The Sox only won because of Keith Faulk, cause yeah Faulk was the MVP so he did it all…right?
5)Again who’s in baseball for money? Yeah definitely not the Red Sox ownership their saints. We have the worst baseball park in the league, I’m sorry it is not the cathedral you think it is. It’s a run down, overstuffed, outdated and overpriced joke of the league.
Personally I haven’t been to a game since before the 2003 World Series. Why? because Fennway is the most expensive ball bark in all of baseball and I can’t even afford a ticket. Even if I got free tickets I couldn’t afford to go. Ever wonder why when there are extra tickets they get “auctioned” off?
Red Sox fans love drinking the Kool Aid. Just like people love drinking from the Bush administration Kool Aid. Tell us what to believe and we are at the troth of the Sox ownership. Yeah the Sox Ownership is not in it for money at all. Maybe next year they’ll build more seats in a weird place and charge you a thousand dollars a seat. Because it’s “Historic Fenway”.
6)Steroids? I can’t even begin to express the anger I have for this statement alone.
Peter you’re nothing but a bitch for the Red Sox and I have now lost all respect for you and the Red Sox.
I would have been much happier if the Sox acted with some brains. Let the season run out and then not re-sign Manny. Both parties could go separate ways and be happy. You could then let one of the greatest hitters in Red Sox history walk away on his own. Instead you kept poking the sleeping lion getting him angrier and angrier till he had enough of your crap.
Now Red Sox nation gets to treat Manny like a pariah.
Congratulations Red Sox nation you now have your new Bill Buckner. Maybe they’ll invite Manny back in 20 years for some celebration. Of course by then he’ll be wearing a Dodger cap into the Hall of Fame.
Nice. I enjoyed this tirade very much. This has to be one of the worst baseball trades ever. If he made the comments you say, Gammons is hopelessly compromised, not that i have paid any attention to him in years. Today I’m actually grateful that I’m a Metsfan.
And I’m grateful to be in LA, angling for a ticket to tonight’s Manny Dodger debut.
This tirade is clearly the opinion of a Manny apologist.
In years past, manny has been the cause of headaches but nothing to the extent of what he’s been this season. In 2005, he demanded a trade and when he didn’t get one, came out and got his RBI single and all was forgotten.
in 2006, he sat out the entire final month of the season because the Red Sox were pretty much out of it for that reason as well as in protest of the fact that a ball he hit during that 5 game set against NY was ruled an error and not a hit.
THEN, in 2007 he sat out the majority of the Red Sox’ games with a “strained oblique” while his team was clinging to a small division lead over the Yankees.
NOW, in 2008, he comes to spring training doing his best Pedro Serrano impression by just going with the flow. Then, all of the sudden, he shoves a travelling secretary to the ground, nevermind the fact that this traveling secretary is 60 years old and manny was requesting an absurd number of tickets for that night’s game. That is not a story that just gets “leaked” thats an absurd act by an even more absurd man. As far as fighting with youk is concerned, he may have been in the right about Youk’s post-at-bat tantrums but let’s be honest, is that really something that needs to be addressed in a physical manner in the dugout during the game? NO. Is that all? no. Following all this, Manny decides that the Red Sox are doing him a disservice by not picking his option up in April the way they did for Pedro Martinez back in April of 2003. once they don’t do that, he starts calling out team ownership and saying that they don’t deserve him.
The man is a cancer plain and simple and to explain otherwise is an atrocious apologist act on behalf of a man who has worn out his welcome in Boston. He’s a hall of fame player and has helped to bring 2 world championships to a team that hadn’t seen one in almost a century. However, this situation goes beyond production on the field and beyond a simple respect of the game. It extends to manny generally being a piece of shit and throwing tantrums,faking injuries etc. circa Nomar Garciaparra 2004.
He had to go.
And one final point: to compare Bill Buckner and Manny Ramirez is just disgusting and an insult to a fine ballplayer such as Buckner. You owe him an apology
Jordan, bad comparisons are the cornerstones of whiny, self-conscious blogging. Don’t fuck up the man’s style. At the very least he provided a lot more original content than can be expected from your average blogger.
The Providence Journal reports that Red Sox GM Theo Epstein met with team veterans on Wednesday, and they told him that Manny Ramirez had to go.
The players were not only tired of Manny’s antics and felt that he was a distraction, but they didn’t trust that they could count on him during the pennant race. One story in the Boston Herald on Friday quoted a teammate as saying “He just doesn’t care.” Another Herald story discussed his refusal to visit with young cancer patients, calling him a “bum.” It seems most everyone involved with Manny in Boston is happy to see him go.
Even if your Woodward & Bernstein-like investigative reporting leads you to the unheard-of conclusion that these stories were planted by the Sox ownership, exactly what is your point?!? They leaked the story about the traveling secretary, but who did the shoving? They leaked the stories of him sitting down against good pitchers because he’s a pussy, but who did the sitting? Who made this whole issue about his contract instead of acting like a guy in a walk year?!? Big fucking deal, Gammons reported what the Sox wanted him to. So what?!? Did he make any of it up?!? Nomar sat out that game with a fake injury while Jeter was diving into the stands and breaking his damned face….that wasn’t a story concocted to justify a trade, he chose that path, dummy! Same deal here.
The man’s name is Keith Foulke, btw.
Atrocious apologist? Respect for the game? Ah, the luxuries enjoyed by fans of the championship-rich. Far be it from me to keep red sawx fans from delighting in the dismantling of their own world series hopes, but I do have a vested interest in stopping the yankees. Maybe young Epstein won’t be slinking back into the gorilla suit over this, but that doesn’t make it a good baseball decision. Anyone with respect for the game knows that keeping the Yankees on the outside looking in is a prime directive.
So if you’re tired of manny, you’re probably also tired of winning. The sawx treat their vanquished like an old school Bruins goaltender–they don’t just run them out of town, they cover them with shit, light them ablaze and then run them out.
Nomar of all people brought up Mo Vaughn yesterday — a different owner and GM presided over that particular departure. But with the possible exception of Dan Duquette allowing Roger Clemens to take his black bag to Toronto, jettisoning old Red Sox icons hasn’t turned out too badly for Boston, at least not in the cases of Garciaparra and Martinez. It’s the way guys get buried on their way out of town that stinks. If the situation with Manny was truly untenable — and it must have been when you look at the lengths Epstein went to dump one of the great hitters of his era — fair enough. Gammons making multiple tv and radio cameos to trash Ramirez, however, has the appearance of Peter acting like Tito and Theo’s (well-read) enforcer. We expect this kind of hysteria from a Mariotti or Wally Matthews, not from ESPN’s Hall of Famer.
Tired of winning? Hardly. I challenege you to look anyone who knows anything about baseball and specifically the Red Sox in the eye and tell them (with a straight face) that the Red Sox were going to make the playoffs with Manny on the team.
There’s a reason the veterans voted to get him out of town, that reason being that they knew he couldn’t be trusted to give it his all down the stretch because that’s who manny is. If he doesn’t like something he’ll do one of 4 things
A.) He’ll take his issues to the Media
B.)He’ll sit out games in protest
C.) He’ll play in the games but play in a manner similar to his performance in John Lackey’s near no-hitter
D.) All of the above.
No Peter you are the FUCKING disgrace. Where were you during the steroid era? He cant seem to answer that, can he.
Now hes making Manny out to be worse than steroids..
Its like being on death row and hating people for cheating on their taxes.