Overblown or not, for three straight years Manny has been the perpetrator of a late- season indiscretion. He left the team for a few days in 2000 when Joe Kerrigan took over as manager, last season he did not run out a ball to first in Tampa, and now this. Ramirez is becoming the anti- Reggie Jackson- he is Mr. September, in a negative sense. The fact that at times he looks like he is not trying is one thing, people can say that's just Manny being Manny. He usually silences those critics with his bat. When he makes these comments, there is no denying his unhappiness. Saying he dreams of playing for the Yankees, when he makes so much money from the Red Sox, and has 6 years (including this year) left on his contract, is even more egregious. The point of his Yankees dream comment can be interpreted as the desire of a player wanting to play in his hometown, but given past rumblings that Ramirez is unhappy in Boston, it is hard to buy that line of thinking.

In 2001 Manny Ramirez was one day late in reporting to spring training, and Trot Nixon ripped into him. Coupled with comments about Manny being out of Monday's lineup against the Phillies, one could come to the conclusion that there may be some bad blood between the two. Nixon should be applauded for his comments. Someone needs to get Manny motivated and put him in his place. When Nixon made his comments in 2001, he was a different player. Today he is more restrained, more clutch and more relevant. His recent comments carry that much more weight because of the improvement in his performance.

Besides the dollars they are being paid, it is hard to fathom how these players can act out like this. The Sox owners and management have bent over backwards to make both players happy. When Pedro made his comments early in the season regarding his contract option, the Sox exercised it, even though he is coming off a major injury and they had until November to decide. We all heard the stories about the Sox bringing in Carlos Baerga and increasing the size of the locker room to appease Manny. What else are these guys looking for? Surely there are players of a similar caliber out there who would be happy to take the Sox' money. There is no underestimating their value to the team, but it's September, and these things are that much more inappropriate.

EXTRA! EXTRA!
These are the types of things I wish the media would do more of. Offbeat, interesting topics that fans don't forget make the players more fun to pay attention to and root for. It's great to get to know them a little better, and it's not the usual cliched statements we hear again and again. This is from the Boston Herald's September 2, 2003 Red Sox notebook, written by Michael Silverman:

The death of namesake and movie legend Charles Bronson on Sunday did not affect Red Sox reliever Bronson Arroyo's availability yesterday. Arroyo's first name came about because his Cuban-born father was a fan of Bronson.

``It was strange being named after him, but then my dad never really talked about him all that much,'' said Arroyo, who was never a diehard Bronson fan. ``It wasn't like he collected Charles Bronson stuff.