Getting what they deserve

An Associated Press account of Manny Ramirez’s third game as a Dodger included the following information: “Ramirez ran out a grounder behind third base at full speed.”

The AP reporter deemed it worthy of note that Ramirez had hustled on a play — something that Derek Jeter, for one, has done on every grounder or flyball he’s ever hit in his career.

For this modicum of caring, Ramirez was cheered by the Los Angeles crowd, which might seem a bit excessive. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
For that matter, so is truth.

In the last weeks of Ramirez’s tenure in Boston, anyone with eyes could see that Manny — wanting out of a contract that paid him a paltry $20 million a year — had turned Red Sox saboteur, not running out ground balls, not bothering to swing in a key at-bat against the Yankees, pulling himself out of the lineup with phantom injuries.

Not only had his manager and longtime protector, Terry Francona, turned against him, so had his fellow players.

“When you quit on your team, that’s the worst thing you can do,” one Red Sox player said. “He had to go after that.” Another called Ramirez’s actions “a disgrace.”

Yet his new manager, smilin’ Joe Torre, said, “Over the years I have never heard anything negative about him from his teammates. That’s usually a particularly good sign.”

On the other hand, slapping a teammate in the dugout — as Ramirez did recently to Kevin Youklis — or in a fit of pique knocking over a 64-year-old traveling secretary — as he did to Jack McCormick — isn’t a particularly good sign.

But as Ramirez is hitting .467 with five home runs in 12 games, everyone bleeding Dodger blue is happy to drink the Kool-Aid.

Turn to the West, cup your hears and you can probably hear the Dodger Stadium chant: Manny is a team player. Manny plays hard. Manny is misunderstood.

On his way out of Boston, Ramirez said the Red Sox didn’t deserve him. He was dead wrong. The Red Sox covered and made excuses for their petulant hitting star for years, and when he turned on them, they deserved him, all right.

And when it turns ugly in L.A., his new enablers, the Dodgers, will have richly deserved him as well.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.