As a recent transplant to Los Angeles, I had the pleasure of seeing the impact that Manny Ramirez had on the Dodgers last season. LA is not much of a sports town to begin with, and the mediocre play from the Dodgers over the last two decades caused most Angelinos to give up on baseball entirely in favor of the Lakers. It’s hard to blame the fans when your team has 5 playoff appearances in 20 years and you live in a city where most people are more passionate about their avocado smoothies than the local ballclub. It’s also hard to have faith in a team that consistantly signs over rated and over the hill players to ludicrous contracts. 2008 looked like another sub par year for the Dodgers, but we all remember what happened. Manny came to town and single handedly saved their season.

I’m a huge cynic, but it was an amazing experience to see one player completely revitalize a franchise and get thousands of people caring about baseball again. For the last two months of the season, all anyone could talk about was Manny. And judging by talk radio and the occasional scientific poll, it was hard to find someone who would say anything bad about him.  Everyone wanted him to sign a longterm deal, and no one seemed to care how much it cost.  Of course it’s easy to say that when you’re not sitting across the table from Scott Boras and he’s asking you for $200 million, a private jet, a solid gold robot maid and custody of your children(contract details may not be accurate).

No matter the details, most locals I’ve talked to are infuriated that the Dodgers haven’t found a way to sign Manny yet, and will probably go back to not caring about baseball if Manny is anywhere but LA this season. Obviously Manny couldn’t give two shits about where he plays, just as long as they pay up and put up with his childish (though amusing) behavior. I guess I can’t blame him for wanting to get the best deal, but it would be a shame to see this city lose it’s renewed passion for baseball just because Frank McCourt won’t pony up for a bowling ball made out of blood diamonds – or whatever crazy shit Manny wants.

Tags: Dodgers, Manny, robot maid

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 11th, 2009 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.