The Last Sports Writer: Manny Up
By Neal Pollack
Old pal Heather and I each had an armful of bratwurst and bottled water on Saturday night, and I was carrying around an oversized “helmet fries” to make things more difficult. It was the bottom of the first inning. The Diamondbacks had gone out scoreless in their half, and now Juan Pierre was on base after a bunt that should have been called foul. Instead, Pierre got credit for a leg single and would be praised in the papers the next day for his hustle and gamesmanship, despite the fact that he didn’t see first base again for the rest of the day. Kemp was now up.
“We need to sit down, immediately,” I said to Heather. “Manny is coming.”
“Oh my,” she said.
Heather’s from Kansas, so sometimes she says things like that, and she’s a good companion at Dodger games. Unlike some of my other invited guests, who must endure my very particular way of going about my fan-business, she seems to genuinely enjoy my strategy of sitting in a different loge seat every inning, staying ahead of the ushers and continually upgrading until, at last, you’re in the cool-breeze padded seats on the railing, right down the first-base line. She’s willing to suffer through some lesser seats to get there.
In this case, with half the fan base still stuck on the 110 or shotgunning PBR in the parking lot, we had our pick. We squatted in time to see Kemp fly out and Pierre tag up and take second, another useless “hustle” play that could really have killed the inning. Martin came up and quickly ground to second, with Pierre advancing to third. Then Manny stepped to the plate, dreadlocks gently flopping down his back, and baseball time stopped.
Flashbulbs exploded in a display only matched, in my memory, by the games where Barry Bonds was chasing his record. This, though, was no sideshow; Manny was our guy, amazingly, brought here to deliver the Dodgers from the mediocre purgatory that had mired them for two decades. The crowd, naturally, went bezonkers, as crowds often do when anticipating a knockout. The night before, in his first game as a Dodger, Manny had faced Randy Johnson, who will one day be his neighbor in the Hall of Fame. But poor Yusmierio Petit never had a chance.
On the second pitch, maybe the third, Manny launched one into the left-field bleachers so quickly that I barely had time to put down my fries. Suddenly, all around me, fat men, previously strangers to one another, were hugging, their eyes alight with redemptive satisfaction. Manny took a curtain call, the Dodgers were up 2-0, and that was most of what they needed as they grinded out a 4-2 win.
It had been a long week at the park for me. I went on Wednesday, the last night of the pre-Manny era. Torre put out what pre-Manny Dodger fans referred to as the “good lineup.” This meant no Juan Pierre (though I guess Andruw Jones going oh-for-three kind of canceled out the joy). Chad Billingsley shut out the Giants and the final out was recorded on an epic play at home plate. With that legendary game in my hip pocket, I kept ESPN News on all day Thursday, praying that Ned Colletti wouldn’t do something stupid like trade Matt Kemp to Pittsburgh for Jack Wilson. Instead, the news was “the Dodgers get Manny Ramirez.”
Here I thought I’d be going to a funeral, and instead, a rave broke out. I dropped to my knees, pumped my fist, and shouted “Yes! Yes! YEEEEEEEEES!” The fact that I did this while alone in my basement did not make it less pathetic. Also, I had tickets for that night, but Manny wasn’t going to make it to L.A. in time. So instead I had to watch Andruw Jones go 0-4 against Brandon Webb, and the Dodgers lost the first game of a really important series to the D’Backs, 2-1.
The next day, I went to the X Games, thinking, “Well, I have a sports column. I really should go to the X Games.” Also, it was free on Friday. While I understand that many people love the X Games and that the people who participate in the X Games are really talented and cool, I would have had more fun at a hardware convention. Plus, the Home Depot Center is a fucking haul from my house, and if I’m going to drive 25 miles to a sporting event, you can’t make the Spanish guy who lives in Norway whip a motorcycle off a really high dirt mound, perform a trick called the “Kiss of Death,” and then have to do the run again because of some obscure “timing problem.” That was the coolest thing I’d seen all day, and it didn’t count.
I got out early and went home to watch Manny’s debut with the Blue, where he infamously grounded into a double play in the ninth, and the Dodgers lost again, 2-1. Nobody blamed Manny, but fans threatened revolt if Joe Torre ever again deployed Andruw Jones to do anything except take over in center field in the eighth inning of a 13-2 blowout.
Saturday, we’ve already discussed, and then I watched from home on Sunday as Manny went 4-for-5 and the Dodgers totally stomped the D’Backs 9-3. Casey Blake, also recently picked up from the American League, got some key hits, too, and I had to give credit to the management on this one. I’ve been very hard on them in this space (and I’m sure they’ve been crushed by my withering critiques), but they really nailed it on this trade deadline. Yes, they sent away some good young players, but now this team looks ready to explode. Getting Manny was just a miracle, and we’re all grateful.
Assuming that Torre is smart enough to play Ethier over Pierre.
Published: 08/06/2008
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