Bob, stop it ... you're killing me ...

Ready for a good laugh? No, I mean a REALLY good laugh ...

Take a look at what Oakland A's manager Bob Melvin said about his team's signing of two-time drug cheat Manny Ramirez:

“He can be a great example with his work ethic,” Melvin said. “We have some young kids and, who knows, maybe something will rub off.”

Well, yes, something could rub off — an illegal substance, perhaps; a bit of his selfish personality, maybe. They can learn how to feign injury, certainly.

Work ethic?

Earth to Bob: this is the same guy a former manager — Terry Francona, who knew him well — called the "worst human being he'd ever met."

Say, "Maybe his hitting will help us." Say, "Maybe the kids can look at his mechanics and patience at the plate." But "He can be a great example with his work ethic?"

You've just lost all credibility, Bob ...

Shrug this

So.

Manny Ramirez wants to play winter ball in the Dominican Republic. And why?

The president of the Cibao Eagles said the steroid cheat wants to “play before the Dominican fans and to perhaps motivate other Major League stars to also play in the country.”

Yes, always thinking of others — that’s our Manny.

Unfortunately, being a steroid cheat, Manny still owes Major League Baseball a 50-game suspension. And now Manny’s ready to serve it, if only some big-league team will sign him.

“It would be really sad if I'm not allowed to play.” Manny said Wednesday.

Sad? It would be tragic.

Especially since Manny apparently needs to get out of town — thanks to a domestic-violence beef he’s facing.

His wife told police he slapped her. Manny says he just “shrugged her” and she hit her head on a headboard.

I have a feeling every team in Major League Baseball is going to “shrug” him.

Friday column: Karma, some twits and tweets

So.

The Tampa Bay Rays knew Manny Ramirez was a two-time offender of baseball's policy against performance-enhancing drugs, but decided to sign the aging slugger anyway.

And they profess surprise when he's busted a third time?

"He was disappointed in himself," Rays manager Joe Maddon said.

Really? Exactly how did he disappoint himself? By injecting himself in spite of all the Juicers Anonymous meetings he attended? By getting caught?

Ramirez, who retired at 38 rather than accept MLB's 100-game suspension, phoned Maddon — but not to say he was sorry.

"I wasn't looking for an apology necessarily," Maddon said. "I wasn't. He spoke to me kind of like, man to man, person to person, manager to player. So I didn't think he owed me an apology."

Maddon's right. The Rays weren't owed an apology — they got precisely what they deserved.

• • •

So.

Reds pitcher Mike Leake was arrested and charged with shoplifting six shirts worth $59.88 from a Cincinnati Macy's.

Yes, this is the same Leake who got a signing bonus of $2.3 million just two years ago and now makes $425,000 a season.

Ah, but we have an excuse — or at least a story.

A report has emerged claiming that what Leake did wasn't theft — just a clumsy attempt at an exchange, an "exchange" that reportedly included cutting the price tags off the shirts.

Well, if the latest story is true, there's a word for Leake: dumb.

If the latest story is false, there's another word for him: pathological.

• • •

So.

A trio of high-schoolers from Columbus, Ga. — including top prospect Deion Bonner — are invited on a recruiting visit to the University of Georgia.

They get the usual recruiting royal treatment and are allowed to roam the school's football complex — including the locker rooms — un-chaperoned.

Why not? It's not as though you have to worry about high school kids pilfering from a program they might soon play for. Right?

Wrong.

Bonner, Marquise Hawkins and an unidentified juvenile were arrested by police and charged with theft. They're accused of stealing iPods and iPhones — oh, and a pair of Nike slippers — from the lockers of seven Bulldog football players. Estimated value: $1,330.

While the police are sure they have the culprits, they don't have all the stolen merchandise. Apparently the items were peddled rather quickly. And why not? In the Twitter age, it doesn't take long to find buyers for your ill-gotten gains.

But Twitter ... Twitter ... something about that ...

Oh yeah: It's not exactly secret communication. Police who nabbed Bonner and the others credit social media for the quick arrest.

Apparently, then, not only was Bonner unprincipled enough to steal from possible future teammates, he was clueless enough to advertise the fact by tweeting.

Some are saying this indicates Bonner's unsuitability to attend a major college program.

I don't know — he looks like prime student-athlete material to me.

Friday column: Talk about your easy prediction

Last week, I wrote about 14 Little Leaguers who — in just a few days together — discovered the importance of team. Today, I write about a pro athlete with no sense of team.

No, that might be unfair; I'm sure he, his agent and his accountant are very close.

Yes, I'm talking about Manny.

Ramirez's breakup with the Dodgers came as a surprise to no one, including some New Mexican columnist who in 2008 — after Ramirez quit on his previous club and forced the trade to L.A. — wrote the following:

"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 it as well."

And richly they did.

The Dodgers welcomed Ramirez, smiled at his dreadlocks, laughed at his antics, made excuses for his behavior in Beantown, and rode his umm ... let's call it unnatural ... hitting as far as they could.

The Dodgers named part of the left-field stands "Mannywood" and held special promotions to take advantage of the aging slugger's popularity — popularity so great the Dodgers signed him to a two-year, $45 million deal in the off-season.

Such largess appeared justified when L.A. started the 2009 season like a rocket, jumping off to a 61/2-game lead. Manny was never more beloved. Then came May and Ramirez's 50-game suspension by Major League Baseball — reportedly for testing positive for artificial testosterone and for using a banned fertility drug that steroid cheats use to restart their natural testosterone production.

Without their star hitter, the Dodgers fizzled.

"Somebody punched a hole in the balloon," said Joe Torre, Dodgers manager and chief excuse-maker.

By the time Ramirez returned, the Dodgers were not the same, and neither was Manny.

No, let me rephrase that. He was still the same me-first greedhead. He just wasn't the same hitter, and this injury-plagued season has been the least productive of his career. Not only was he no longer juicing, now with the Dodgers' money in his pocket, he was no longer even pretending to care.

In his final appearance as a Red Sox, he didn't bother to take his bat off his shoulders. In his final appearance in Dodger blue, he couldn't be bothered to even look at three pitches, instead getting tossed out of the game for arguing with the ump after a single delivery.

(The laughter you hear is coming from Boston.)

The excuse making already has started with the White Sox, who took Ramirez off the Dodgers' hands in hopes he can do for them what he did for L.A. in 2008. If they do more than rent his bat for the rest of the season — actually sign him for next year — they, too, will richly deserve whatever Me-Manny-Me serves up.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Friday column: So ... so much to celebrate

So.

You’re Michael Vick.

You’ve gone away to prison for 19 months. You’ve lost tens of millions of dollars in income and fines and are tens of millions in debt. You recently were voted the most disliked man in sports.

You’re a pariah not only for your conviction on dogfighting charges but for your personal, hands-on role in the savage torturing and killing of innocent animals.

Your “conditional” reinstatement to the NFL is dependent upon your behavior, your true repentance and evidence that you finally “get it,” that you — you alone — ultimately are responsible for the unmitigated disaster that is your life.

So you …

… decide it’s time for Michael Vick Community Celebration day!

Yes, the good folks in Vick’s hometown of Newport News, Va., are cooking up a day to honor the life of one Michael Dwayne Vick — with Vick’s blessing.

Actually, it’s with more than his blessing.

“It was his idea,” John Eley, one of the organizers, told The Associated Press. “Vick wanted to give back to the community, like he always does.”

Vick wants to “give back to the community” by staging a celebration for himself?

Uh yeah, he definitely “gets it,” all right.

* * *

So.

You’re Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.

Your team went ahead with Manny Ramirez bobblehead night even though your left fielder had been suspended for 50 games for having taken a banned drug.

OK, you’re a business, and 50,000 dolls already had been ordered. I understand.

Then it’s revealed that your left fielder apparently was a steroid user back way back in 2003, thus bringing more embarrassment to your team.

So you …

... order up another 50,000 dolls for a second Manny bobblehead night!

Why not another night for you, Frank. You’re the real bobblehead.

* * *

So.

You’re Boston’s David Ortiz.

When news comes out that your name was on the list of players who tested positive for banned substances in 2003, you say, “You know me — I will not hide and I will not make excuses.”

So ...

... you hide and refuse to answer questions for more than a week!

Now you say you’re going to address the issue Saturday, so we’ll find out then about the not-making-excuses part. If you stonewall, may I suggest a bobblehead night for you? Or perhaps even a “David Ortiz Community Celebration”?

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Ah, David, that’s the way to do it …

For someone who has only now been revealed as a drug cheat, David Ortiz sure has the patter down. (That’s him at left above in happier days with fellow juicer Manny Ramirez.)

News he was on the list of Major League Baseball players who tested positive for banned substances in 2003 “blindsided” him, he said after Thursday’s afternoon’s 8-5 Boston win over Baltimore. He can’t comment until he gets “to the bottom of this.”

Lovely.

And the gi-normous sunglasses he used to prevent us from seeing his eyes as he spoke — nice touch.

And it’s not just the patter and the look he has down — he’s also got the strategy. Keep hitting game-changing home runs for the Red Sox, David, and no one in Beantown will even care about your use of banned substances, or your lies. After all, Yankee lovers are giving A-Rod a pass — 19 homers in 247 at-bats will make fans do that.

As for your search “for answers,” let me posit for a possible one: You’re a drug cheat and you got caught. Period.

A bobblehead, indeed

Months ago, health care provider Kaiser Permanente was set to help sponsor Wednesday's Manny Ramirez bobblehead giveaway at Dodger Stadium.

Then came Manny’s drug suspension.

Then came some second thoughts.

Then came Kaiser’s withdrawal from the big night.

“As a health-care organization, we thought it was necessary to pull out of our sponsorship of the promotion when he was suspended for violating baseball's drug policy,” a Kaiser Permanente spokesman said.

No matter.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Kaiser was replaced by San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino which, considering the risk the Dodgers are taking by banking of the volatile and selfish Ramirez, is only too appropriate.

And yes, I know Ramirez hit a grand slam Wednesday, sending the Dodger faithful into ecstasy. I remind them the Red Sox fans loved Manny, too ... until they didn't. And made excuses for him ... until they couldn't.

All the rage

There’s a line I like from the 1968 film The Lion in Winter. With England’s Henry II getting all snarly — that's him at right, played by Peter O'Toole — Phillip II of France says coolly, “You’re good at rage. I like the way you play it.”

Miami-area physician Pedro Publio Bosch sounds very Henry-esqe in a statement attacking the very idea of his being involved in Manny Ramirez’s little drug problem.

An idea that he might be has been floated by ESPN, which said Bosch and his son are under investigation by the DEA in Ramirez’s use of HCG, a fertility drug commonly used by athletes coming off a steroid cycle in order to boost testosterone production.

"I consider the allegations of ESPN outrageous and slanderous, and issue this statement to correct the misrepresentations made by ESPN," Bosch said. "First, Mr. Manny Ramirez is not, nor has he ever been my patient. I have never prescribed drugs of any kind whatsoever to Mr. Ramirez.

"Second, in my thirty-three years of practicing medicine in Coral Gables, Florida, I have never prescribed HCG, not to Mr. Manny Ramirez nor to anyone else."

Bosch's statement also said, "to the best of my knowledge there is no DEA investigation involving me in any matter whatsoever."

Sorry, Pedro, but ESPN is standing by its story, and there apparently is an investigation. Then there’s the little matter of your son, Anthony, whom your huff-and-puff statement never mentioned, and whom sources have said is believed to have been a conduit between you and Manny-boy. And, though you say ESPN's allegations are "slanderous," your statement made no mention of a lawsuit against the network.

All in all, then, Pedro, you’re good at rage, but I don’t think the feds will be particularly impressed by the way you play it …

Mike Schmidt wants out of Manny's world

In viewing the relatively supportive response to the return of steroid cheat Manny Ramirez, Mike Schmidt has seen the future, and it doesn’t work for him — at all.

“Accountability, morality, substance, trust, honesty and so on, are all on a steady decline in our country,” the Hall of Fame third baseman said. “And Manny's world, like some other ‘worlds’ we know, is perpetuating it. At this rate, 20 years from now, pro sports are going to be just like pro wrestling -- marketing to the masses who just want to be entertained.”

Friday column: This silence is not golden, but all too common

Accountability is big in sports — in concept, anyway — and is preached constantly, sometimes with the help of visual aids.

I remember former NFL coach Bum Phillips famously brandishing a short piece of white cord — the idea being, as I recall, that players were accountable to each other like mountain climbers. If you were headed over a cliff, you really needed the person on the other end to “hold the rope.”

But while accountability is preached in Toyland, it often is not practiced.
Take Tim Floyd at USC.

The Los Angeles Times said that at his team’s March 31 banquet, the men’s basketball coach pleaded with his most talented players to not turn pro but stay and help the Trojans win an NCAA title.

The next day — April fools! — Floyd flew to Tucson to interview for the University of Arizona job.

In May, Floyd — whose program already was the target of an NCAA probe into alleged goodies provided to former “one-and-done” star O.J. Mayo — was accused of acting as his own bagman in handing $1,000 in cash to a Mayo associate during the “recruitment” process.

More Trojan players and recruits jumped ship.

Tuesday, Floyd did, too, but how he did it is revealing. He gave a newspaper in his home state of Mississippi his resignation letter — before faxing it to USC. He told the newspaper he “intended” to contact his players and assistants — then turned off his cell phone. And presumably hid in the cellar.

To be fair to Floyd, who in his last weeks never so much as issued a simple denial of the charges facing him, he’s pretty much following USC’s modus operandi.

The Trojans’ football program is also under investigation for alleged NCAA infractions — serious infractions — yet neither coach Pete Carroll, athletic director Mike Garrett nor school President Steven Sample will say “boo” about the matter.

Things aren’t much better a few miles away at Dodger Stadium, where Manny Ramirez did talk to the press — but refused to answer questions about his 50-game drug suspension.
Ramirez said he had apologized to his teammates, fans and ownership but felt no need for further discourse. I guess being a star doesn’t mean never having to say you’re sorry but does mean never having to explain exactly what you’re sorry for.

“I didn’t kill nobody, I didn’t rape nobody, so that’s it,” Ramirez said.

Rape and homicide — so that’s where the accountability bar is set.

By that standard, Ramirez, Floyd, Carroll, Garrett and Sample don’t owe us a thing.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t want any of them at the other end of my rope.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Please, oh please …

A Los Angeles Times story says Manny Ramirez might just decide that silence — silence about his 50-game drug suspension, that is — is golden.

A source says that Manny will cite legal reasons for his failure to address the circumstances that led to his banishment, which, if true, means Manny might have a future in politics.

After all, seamy pols for years have used that particular excuse to explain their clamming up. It normally comes with an insincere smile that tells reporters, “We both know this is a dodge – but it’s my story and I’m sticking with it.”

Except — to make it even slightly plausible — there has to be some legal action to cite, and here’s where it might get interesting. Manny is said to be considering suing the physician who allegedly prescribed the female fertility drug he took that landed him on baseball's list of banned substances.

If that happens, it would mean depositions and disclosure, which I imagine is the last thing Manny and his brain trusts actually wants. I, however, would dearly love it.

From the wonderful folks who brought you Jayson Blair

This just in from The New York Times and Randy Cohen, its “ethicist”: Manny Ramirez’s apparent use of banned substances, while possibly unwise, is not unethical.

Calling all enablers

One of the reasons steroid use has been rampant in Major League Baseball is the tacit acceptance of it by players not juicing themselves.

Witness Friday’s love-fest between Manny Ramirez and his Dodgers teammates.

Manny dropped in on the team he essentially lied to and betrayed to apologize for his recent 50-game suspension but, hey, it turns out there was no need.

“He knows he made a mistake. I forgive him,” Dodgers third baseman Casey Blake said. “It's his business.”

Hey, Casey, are you brain-dead? It IS your business. It is also MY business. It’s the business of anyone who cares about the game of baseball.

“I don’t think anyone was really looking for” an apology, Blake added.

Goodness, no, Casey — no one wants to make Manny uncomfortable.

“He was a guy concerned about his team and his teammates,” Blake said. “I know he feels bad.”

Actually, Casey, he was a guy more or less ordered by Dodgers owner Frank McCourt to apologize for what he’d done. As for feeling bad, yeah — he feels bad he was caught, like every other steroid cheat who gets busted.

Jeez-Louise, Casey: Take a ride on the clue bus.

Friday column: Lies? Bet the House on it

So.

Outfielder Manny Ramirez tested positive for banned substances because his doctor prescribed something for a “personal health issue.”

And NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield came up dirty because “the combination of a prescribed medicine and an over-the-counter medicine reacted together and resulted in a positive drug test.”

Even Louis Caldera — the Ground Zero Fly-by Guy — has a prescription-related excuse for his boo-boo: The suddenly former head of the White House Military Office told The Associated Press he was suffering from severe muscle aches and had been prescribed pain medication.

They say that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue; if so, those are about the only props virtue is getting these days.

What’s that line uttered by House’s Hugh Laurie? Everybody lies. Let’s update it. Everybody cheats, then lies. No, you’re right — sometimes they lie, then cheat, then lie some more.

Here’s one way athletes lie: “I made a mistake.”

Let’s be clear: When a copy editor misspells a word in 72-point type, that’s a mistake. When an athlete uses steroids or human growth hormone, that’s cheating. Mistake and cheating are not synonymous.

Neither are team and fan, though you wouldn’t know it by the way some jock devotees stick with their favorites through thick and trick — like the Dodgers fans who don’t appear to have a problem with Manny being Manny, even when that turns out to mean Manny being Barry.

Many of the same fans who excoriated the Giants for keeping Barry Bonds — Mr. Steroid — on the payroll, are making excuses for Ramirez — Mr. Female Fertility Drug.

Fans have been known to accuse athletes of being self-absorbed at the expense of the game, saying that for certain athletes, “It’s all about me.” Well, sports fans, guess what? When you support a player like Ramirez or Bonds or A-Rod (or just fill in the cheat), because they help your team win and elevate your little ego, you, too, are saying, “It’s all about me.”

Staying with hypocrisy (a rill that never runs dry), we also have the various enablers — agents, lawyers, flacks — who make a living promoting lies, like so many dung beetles pushing excrement. Where would our heroes be without their sage advice?

In his first — and so far only — public statement, Ramirez followed his lame excuse by saying he’d “been advised not to say anything more for now.” I completely understand. After all, how’s Manny going to know what to say next until Scott Boras has crafted the requisite talking points? It takes time to mold excreta into just the right shape.

Speaking of guano, Mayfield — after trying to float his verbal lead balloon — told the press, “My doctor and I are working with ... NASCAR to resolve this matter.”

I’m sure he’ll get back to us very soon.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Trouble in Mannywood

We already knew Manny Ramirez was a greed-head and a bad teammate.

Now we can add steroid cheat to his résumé after he was suspended 50 games by Major League Baseball.

No, wait; Manny said it wasn’t a steroid that busted him but some other banned substance that was in a medication he was given by a doctor for a “personal condition.”

Ramirez apologized to his Dodgers teammates, owners and manager Joe Torre.

I hope he also apologized to agent Scott Boras. The suspension will cost Manny a third of this season’s salary. Will that affect Boras’ cut?

“L.A. is a special place to me,” Ramirez said, “and I know everybody is disappointed,” he said.

Not everybody, Manny. In New York, where some thought the Yankees might sign you, they’re relieved. In Boston, where you quit on your teammates, they’re ... what's the word? ... ecstatic.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-manny-ramirez8-2009may08,0,6324894.story

Friday column: Reality sometimes reassures

A recent issue of The New Yorker looked at the economic rise and collapse of Iceland — which soared on much of the same financial maneuvering and hubris that led to our own recession, then crashed and burned when credit tightened worldwide.

One Icelander compared the nation’s heady days to the “dream season” on the TV show Dallas, adding, “People were thinking, ‘Wow, we’re one of the richest countries in the world.’ Then they woke up.”

The waking up has been hard on the tiny country but is not without a plus side. As one writer puts it: “The people who couldn’t understand how money could be created this way are relieved that it wasn’t reality. It was true what your grandmother said: Don’t owe too much, don’t take risks, use things well.”

In the sports world, too, verities sometimes prove eternal.

Take the New York Yankees and Alex Rodriguez.

In December 2007, the Steinbrenners — known for unapologetically trying to corner the market on talent — decided it prudent to throw $275 million at A-Rod.

This even though the Yankees had won zero World Series since Rodriguez had moved to the Big Apple, and even though he would be 42 when his nine-year contract ended.

Since that time, Rodriguez has been outed as a steroid user and a liar — just the sort of bloke you want as the face of your franchise for most of a decade. Now an injury has made his future even more uncertain.

Verity confirmed: You can’t just go out and buy a title.

Take the Dallas Cowboys and Terrell Owens.

In March 2006, Jerry Jones decided that Owens’ talent and star power were more important than the wide receiver’s track record as a clubhouse cancer.

Since that time, there have been plenty of touchdowns, but also plenty of backbiting — and not a single playoff win. So now, Owens has been cut loose, free to ply his trade — and his mouth — in Buffalo.

Verity confirmed: Character matters.

Take Manny Ramirez and Scott Boras.

In the summer of 2008, Ramirez began acting out more than usual — including benching himself with phantom injuries — in order to get out of the last two years of his Boston contract. Word is, his agent Boras promised he’d get him A-Rod money in a bidding war.

Well, Ramirez got out of his Boston deal. But this winter, the Dodgers were the only team interested in him, and they signed the outfielder for roughly what he would have made in Boston.

Verity confirmed: Bad behavior — especially quitting on teammates — can be bad for business.

If none of these individuals or teams have crashed and burned like Iceland — or the Dow Jones industrial average — they’ve still experienced downturns, what Wall Street types call corrections, and in today’s moral climate all corrections are welcome.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

On the schadenfreude front

Thank God I still have the Dodgers and Manny Ramirez to root against.

At least I can enjoy the discomfiture of Manny and his agent, Scott Boras, who engineered Ramirez’s grisly departure from Boston — a departure that trashed the outfielder’s already-questionable reputation and resulted in precious little extra green for the me-first slugger.

Boras reportedly was seeking A-Rod money for Manny — that’s $27.5 mil a year for five or six years. Instead, after four months of posturing — what Boras does best — Manny signed with L.A. for $45 million for two years, much of the money deferred. By playing out his contract in Boston, he would have earned $40 million over two years.

After paying Boras’ commission, and considering the deferred money, there’s not much to choose between the old Red Sox deal and the new Dodgers deal. All that angst and ugliness for nothing.

Despite Ramirez’s checkered history, in La-La Land Manny is being hailed as a savior.

Wait till his first pout.

Not a hot property

One team after another has indicated an unwillingness to seriously pursue the services of slugger Manny Ramirez. The latest, according to ESPN, are the Giants, whom agent Scott Boras tried to use as a stalking horse to get the Dodgers — who actually DO have an interest in Ramirez — to make a better offer.

According to ESPN, Boras’ talk about five- and four-year deals worth some $25 million a year only caused the Dodgers to consider that maybe their money would be better spent bolstering their bullpen.

Now, Ramirez’s age — 36 — is all part of this, undoubtedly. But so is Ramirez’s history, most especially his last part season with the Red Sox. Owners and general managers and have to know that if Ramirez can turn on the Sox and quit on the them — turning so poisonous in the clubhouse that Boston was willing to nearly give him away — he can do the same to them.

Wouldn’t it be amusing if Ramirez ended up signing with someone for less than he would have gotten if he’d honored his contract with the Sox …

Friday column: Two little words, one fervent plea

It’s been a rough year.

Wall-to-wall presidential politics. Economic collapse. Madonna breaking up with Guy Ritchie.

Before we attempt to move on and heal from the deep psychic wounds left by 2008, it’s best to try and shed some of the year’s more annoying baggage. As the campaigning has stopped (briefly), the economy is beyond my ken (totally), and the Madge will not listen to a word I say, I’d better stick to sports.

So, to certain figures who — unfortunately — populate the Toy Department of Life, herewith my New Year’s greeting, advice and plea all rolled together:

Terrell Owens: Many of you are familiar with Hannah Arendt’s famous phrase “the banality of evil.” In Owens’ case, it’s the banality of ego. And it’s worn … so … thin. Go away.

Manny Ramirez: Probably heeding the advice of your scaly agent, you flat-out quit on your teammates in Boston — even knocked down the team’s 64-year-old traveling secretary — all so you could get out of your $20 million-a-year contract, which obviously wasn’t enough for a talent and personality as special as yours. Go away — and take Scott Boras with you.

Roger Clemens: Your attempted bullying of Brian McNamee and resultant appearance before Congress gave us an up-close-and-personal look at who you really are — a lot closer and more personal than we really wanted to see. Go away.

Pacman Jones: Back to the banality of ego, with some actual evil thrown in. Your continued thuggery followed by promises to reform followed by further thuggery … well, to use one word: BORING. Go away.

Plaxico Burress: Your wide-receiver-diva act isn’t even original; Terrell Owens plowed that field long ago. Adding criminality might have been interesting — but it was such stupid criminality. Go away.

Michael Vick: Gosh, Mike, it turns out you weren’t needed in Atlanta. Even your more rabid supporters — you know, the ones who didn’t care that you tortured and killed dogs as long as you scored touchdowns — even they don’t miss you because of the arrival of rookie quarterback Matt Ryan. So go away. Wait — that’s right, you’ve already gone away. So stay away.

John Daly (sigh): You keep coming up with new ways to embarrass yourself, but each time you insist your problem is simply one of perception. Yes, you do see that you’re viewed as a sloppy boozer on a Twinkie binge who’s pissing on the prodigious talent God gave you — but you’re absolutely astounded as to what’s fueling that idea. It’s always the press or someone else who’s out to get you. Guess what, John? You’re out to get you, and you’re succeeding. Now go away.

There — I don’t know about you, but I feel lighter already. Happy New Year.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

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.