Salvage operation

Ramírez open to a trade if both sides can be 'happy'

July 28, 2008|Amalie Benjamin and Gordon Edes, Globe Staff

Manny Ramírez has long nursed a hurt about his years with the Red Sox, but has seldom, if ever, articulated it publicly.

That was not the case yesterday afternoon, when the slugger, speaking with a gravity seldom present in his exchanges with reporters, said: "I don't want to talk to them about contracts right now. So what? I know they got me, but enough is enough. I'm tired of them, they're tired of me. After 2008, just send me a letter or whatever. You don't even got to call my agent or whatever. 'Hey, thank you for everything. You're going to become a free agent. We're not going to pick up your option in '09.' "

Ramírez, repeating what he had said earlier in the day in a phone conversation with ESPNDeportes, said he would be open to a trade before Thursday's deadline "if both sides are going to be happy." But he said he didn't expect that to happen, saying, "Boston is not stupid. They're not going to do it. They can say whatever they want. But when it comes to make a deal, they're not going to pull the trigger, because they know what they've got here."

Asked if he was happy here, Ramírez said: "I'm happy. But enough is enough."

Enough is enough?

"That's it," Ramírez said. "You've got to ask [general manager] Theo [Epstein] and [owner] John Henry. They know."

Henry told the Globe's Dan Shaughnessy in an e-mail, "We are concentrating on one thing - a playoff spot."

Epstein had a similar response.

"We will have no further comment about this situation," the GM wrote in an e-mail. "Our focus is on this team - which is in the middle of a pennant race - and in any case it would be premature to comment now on an offseason contractual issue."

Ramírez appears correct about the unlikelihood of a deal. "There's nothing going on," said one industry source close to the situation.

Ramírez, as a 10-5 player - 10 or more years in the major leagues, 5 or more years with the same club - has the right to veto any deal. The Sox have been down this road before - in 2005, they came close to satisfying Ramírez's demand to be traded, but a three-way deal with the New York Mets and Tampa Bay unraveled. An hour after the trading deadline passed, Ramírez came onto the on-deck circle at Fenway Park to pinch hit and received an electrifying ovation, which grew even louder when he singled in the go-ahead run.

This time, the Mets are not interested, according to a source who spoke directly with GM Omar Minaya, and while ESPN's Peter Gammons said last night the Sox would pick up the remainder of Ramírez's 2008 salary in any deal, club sources said they did not expect to get a suitable response before the deadline. Those same sources have indicated that the goal is to have Ramírez playing here.