The Morning According to Us

Papelbon may have jumped the shark with calling Manny a cancer.

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If Manny was a cancer, many teams would be happy to be terminal.

Manny Ramirez makes his spring training debut today for the Dodgers, and yet Jonathan Papelbon, still with Boston, is still upset. He calls Manny a "cancer." A cancer? Has that phrase, in one fell swoop, officially jumped the shark this week? Here's a career .314 batter who leads the Red Sox to two championships, and is arguably the team's second greatest all-around hitter, behind only Ted Williams. A cancer. We'll see if this curses the Sox. Letting go of one great ballplayer already has.

Let's first acknowledge that, yes, Manny was a huge pain in the butt at times. There was the Youkillis-Manny slap fest/all-out brawl. The shoving of the traveling secretary. The mysterious knee injury with the Yankees in town. And that's just last season. You never knew when to take the man at his word. And all he did after donning Dodger blue was, of course, hit .396 with 17 homers and 53 RBI—in just 53 games.

Baseball is a strange game: It's the only team sport where absolute selfishness is the team's reward. A player like Manny can—and probably does—view every at bat as a chance to show his greatness, as irrefutable proof to pay him more money when contract time comes. (And for Manny, it seems to always be contract time.) And yet, these actions only put runs on the board, or, at the very least, Manny on the base paths. (His on-base percentage was superb for such a power hitter.) If the Red Sox—either Jason Varitek, the captain, or Terry Francona, the manager—can't keep in check a player as talented as Manny, that is as much their loss as Manny's. Yes, he was difficult. But so was the Kid. So is, on another talent scale, Sean Avery of the New York Ranger—no less a pompous enigma than Manny. The difference is that hockey is far more a team game, where a prima donna could really spread team unrest like, um, a cancer. And so the Rangers, and then Stars, both let him go. Only the Rangers realized Avery's peculiar blend of irritating, galvanizing genius, and so he's back, and the team is playing its best hockey all season.

The Dodgers recognize that same sort of genius. We're sure Manny himself does, but it's tough to get a comment from him these days. He's too busy lifting weights at 6 a.m, preparing for the season.

Elsewhere…

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The World Baseball Classic, for as far as we can see, is going to be a strict pitch count affair.

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