Manny Ramirez

My favorite non MN Twins baseball player for years has been Manny Ramirez. My favorite sports writer is Bill Simmons. Much to my pleasure Simmons did a feature article on Manny! I think Manny Ramirez is the type of player everyone wishes they had on their team. Manny has been the best hitter of our lifetimes. You can also debate where he ranks all time, and you wouldn't go very far down the list before you got to Manny. Manny has played for three teams now in his career. Those three teams have one thing in common, they win. Cleveland hadn't been to the playoffs for forty years until many got there. Boston which hadn't won a world series in 90+ years, won 2 world series with Manny. The Dodgers were going nowhere until Manny got there, and now they're world series contenders.
Manny is the player who has fun when he plays. He's not the cocky self promoter that a lot of athletes are these days. Manny is in a group with Ozzie Guillen and Randy Moss. This group of guys are far to honest. Most fans and media don't like honesty in their athletes and coaches. They want cliches and lies. They want to be told every thing's all right even when it's not. Sure Manny has made his mistakes, and doesn't do everything right. But who does. I understand that he has millions upon millions of dollars in his career, but is that his fault. Manny is the guy you work with that has fun while at work. He is the guy at your job, that doesn't put in 100% each and everyday, but it doesn't really matter because in the long run he is one of the better workers. Manny is the guy who doesn't clean everything perfect because he knows it's just going to get dirty again right away. It's not Manny's fault that some owner is willing to pay him 20 million a year. It's not his fault that 45,000 people pay money to watch him do his job everyday. In football Brett Favre had this mentality, and is worshiped for it.
Manny Ramirez is a kid playing baseball. When I play softball each week, and I hit a slow grounder to second (which is often) I don't go 100%. When I'm at work I don't always want to be there, I don't always do my best. I think we'd all be lying to ourselves if we said we did. So don't hate on a guy because he does the same thing at his job.
People talk about his fielding, I think we can look across the league and find many players nearly as bad as Manny and none of them can hit like him.
All the guy has ever done is win, and hit. So I wouldn't mind having the guy on my team.