Surfing through what was otherwise a fairly boring T.J. Simers column, I came to one note that stood out in particular. According to Simers, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt was referring to Manny Ramirez in an interview with Mason and Ireland on 710 ESPN in Los Angeles as “the player.” Simers made a crack about McCourt forgetting his name, but that got me thinking. Without actually being able to hear the audio, I couldn’t be sure of the context (the podcast wasn’t downloadable for some reason), but is he going all Bill Parcells here and pulling the T.O. “the player” crap? Who knows.
What we do know is that Manny has the Dodgers by the ***** (nuts), and that they’re probably going to ante up somewhere between $70-75 million over three years. I’m guessing he winds up signing around a 4-year $100 million deal elsewhere and McCourt makes his excuse to the fans that they made an offer and tried their best. McCourt pretty much has no choice but to step up to the plate here unless he wants the Dodgers averaging another 2.5 runs per game next season. Maybe he has some underlying frustration because he knows he’s screwed, or maybe he’s just mad about having beer dumped on him by Manny. That could be it.
And I thought these two were pals!
