The fund's just getting started with Dodgers

ST. LOUIS -- It's Thursday, and Manny Ramirez hasn't gone near a barber, Joe Torre already asking Page 2 to write down the address of Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA so he will know where to send his donation once Monday's haircut deadline has passed.

A few days ago I suggested taking that donation and buying the new Dodgers caps with attached dreads the team will be selling soon, and giving them to the kids at Mattel's.

That prompted reader Chris Danison to e-mail: "Instead of using Torre's money to buy dread-hats for the kids, why can't McCourt donate the hats, and then the hospital can use Torre's money for something else for the kids? Why let McCourt ultimately make the money back?"

Well, I'm not about to start spending money the Parking LotAttendant might not have, or money he might be trying to save for what he considers a better cause.

As you know, a prerequisite for joining the Dodgers these days is

another team agreeing to pay the

guy's salary because word on the street is the Parking Lot Attendant is low on cash.

Right now three of the Dodgers aren't getting paid by Frank McCourt, and there were also reports the Dodgers didn't get CCSabathia and Greg Maddux because they didn't want to set the precedent of actually paying their players.

Ramirez is different. He's a former Red Sox player, and the Parking Lot Attendant is a former Red Sox fan who wanted to buy the team.

He didn't get the team, but now he's got a player everyone in Boston would like to have again.

But how does he keep him after this season, making everyone in Boston jealous and everyone in L.A. thinking him a hero?

Well, as you know, because he tells us all the time, McCourt's grandfather was there as co-owner of the Boston Braves when they started the Jimmy Fund.

The Jimmy Fund started as a way to raise money to buy a TV for a youngster stricken with cancer who wanted to watch the Braves play. The youngster's name really was EinarGustafson, and he died at age 65 from a stroke after overcoming cancer, but he got his TV set and the Jimmy Fund became a way of helping so many other sick kids.

Now I'm not about to compare long-suffering Dodgers fans to kids stricken with cancer, because as I've learned from the folks at Mattel's, there's much more hope for the kids stricken with cancer these days.

But I do like the sound of the Manny Fund, which could very well become McCourt's legacy.

I know right now he's selling all kinds of tickets because of Manny, the Dodgers website proclaiming, "Manny has joined the Dodger family; so should you."

To become a close family member of

Manny's for two months, it costs $1,540 for a preferred box, while distant relatives need only $198 for the top deck. Seed money, I presume, for the Manny Fund, which will be used to sign him.

The Dodgers are also selling T-shirts, blue and brown dreadlocks, and all pure profit when you consider McCourt isn't paying Ramirez anything.

You can just imagine how big the Manny Fund is going to get if Ramirez keeps hitting, another home run against St. Louis, pushing him ahead of Andruw Jones on the Dodgers' all-time home run list.