Ramírez lobbied to stay

August 02, 2008|Gordon Edes, Globe Staff

Of all the Manny moments in Boston, the last ranks as one of the most confounding. Within an hour after Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein informed Manny Ramírez he had been traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers Thursday, Ramírez's agent, Scott Boras, called the Sox back, according to a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations. If the Sox dropped the option years on his contract - which they had agreed to do if they traded him - Boras said Ramírez would not be a problem the rest of the season.

For the Sox, the source said, Ramírez's pledge of good behavior only served as a tacit admission that his disruptive conduct of the last couple of weeks had been calculated, and they had had good cause to suspect more was in the offing if they did not trade him. The Sox told him thanks but no thanks, what was done was done, and pack plenty of sunscreen.

The debate over the merits of trading Ramírez was not going to end last night with a satisfying debut from the new Sox left fielder, which is what Jason Bay delivered in a 2-1, 12-inning win over Oakland. It was not going to end with Ramírez charming the LA glitterati, which he delivered, too, showing up in shades, a smile, and a No. 99 Dodger jersey. It promises to continue through the summer, over the hot stove of winter, and quite possibly through the day Ramírez is inducted into Cooperstown and beyond.

But for Jason Varitek, the pros and cons of that discussion are not terribly important. This was:

"Either way, you had to get to this point and have some closure," said the Red Sox' captain, not long after manager Terry Francona and general manager Theo Epstein had trooped upstairs to answer questions about Bay's arrival and Ramírez's departure, not necessar ily in that order.

"Either Manny's here or he's not," Varitek said. "It became more of an issue of whether or not he was going to be here. And he was pretty adamant he didn't want to be here.

"It came down to his happiness. If they had come to Manny and he said he wanted to stay here, he'd probably still be here. It's kind of out of our hands. I'm glad there's a resolution. There was going to be whether he was here or not."

Truth is, if John W. Henry had cast the deciding vote, Ramírez might not have been frolicking in Chavez Ravine last night. Henry, whose life has been defined by his mastery of numbers, was unconvinced the Sox would be better off without those generated by Ramírez's bat. But in the end, Henry elected to give his support to Epstein and his baseball operations staff.