<strong><u><em>Ted Green</strong></u></em>: The Comet Manram

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May I be Frank? Great Scott! Now that they’ve stopped going around in circles (and, boy, did the rest of us get dizzy for four long, frustrating months), Frank McCourt has a message for Manny:

Have a good year, amigo, just maybe not a great one.

But I think the opt-out clause is genius and perfectly fair for both sides and here’s why: If Manny goes off, Manny being Manny, hits .340 with 40 bombs and 140 ribs, the Yankees or Mets or someone else with money and moxie will give the man with the Rastafarian trenzas the longer deal he and his infuriating agent Scott Boras so desperately wanted.

If that happens, like the Comet Manram, he passed over our L.A. skies and gave us a two-year celestial show, which was very cool, and who would have a problem with that?

Knowing how much the McCourts like to buy beach property and not expensive ballplayers after the way they were burned in free agency in their early ownership tenure, Dodger fans already ASSUME Manny’s gone after this season, anyway, if he has a monster 2009.

But if he hits, say, .305 with a more modest 25 dingers and 105 ribs, maybe teams figure, heck, he’s 37 going on 38, his ginormous years are behind him, he’s flaky, volatile and unpredictable, he won’t be worth a $75-million investment, he’s repped by that Boras ... and if THAT happens, then we get Manny back for year two of the new contract in 2010 at the cut-rate price of only $20 million. Hey, gotta make allowances for the economy.

Either way, for now, which is all any of us are really guaranteed, anyway, we’re Mannywood and the Dodgers matter again. They’re Page 1, above the fold, and 4 million of you are going to make your merry way through those blue turnstiles to see the dreaded hitting savant rake his way through the National League once again.

By the way, for nearly blowing the whole business to kingdom come, uh, Scott, you’re fired.

-- Ted Green

Ted Green is a former sportswriter for the L.A. Times. He is currently Senior Sports Producer for KTLA Prime News.