Sign of the times for Ramirez: *99*

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

NEW YORK -- Manny Ramirez’s 2009 salary: $25 million.

The amount the Dodgers left fielder had to forfeit during his 50-game drug suspension: $7.72 million.

Letting Ramirez know you’re livid about his actions: $20.

That was all it cost for a pair of New Jersey natives to plaster the left-field seats at Citi Field with 400 sheets of paper bearing *99* this evening prior to the Dodgers’ game against the New York Mets.

‘The cheating has to stop,’ said Sal Musto, 20, of Middletown, N.J., who made the signs with Adam Mumma, 19, of Long Branch, N.J. ‘We want to clean up the game.’

Musto and Mumma made copies of their signs at Staples and stuffed them into seat backs in three left-field sections.

‘We kind of got the idea from the Barry Bonds thing with the asterisk,’ Musto said, referring to the former San Francisco Giants slugger suspected of using steroids. ‘We wanted to do our own thing for Manny.’

With Ramirez and the Dodgers unable to take batting practice because of intermittent showers that moved through the area before the game, Musto and Mumma were relegated to flashing their sign at left fielder Juan Pierre as he made warm-up tosses.

‘He waved and then he looked kind of angry,’ Mumma said.

The signs were met with mixed reviews by fans in left field.

‘I get it. It works,’ said Kristin Blair of Simi Valley, a Mets fan who said she would feel good about booing Ramirez because he cheated.

Anissa Wiley of the Bronx, N.Y., who was wearing an L.A. shirt and a New York Yankees cap ‘in support of [Dodgers Manager] Joe Torre,’ said she would wave the sign so long as she could fold the asterisks so they didn’t show.

Would Wiley cheer Ramirez even though he was caught with a prescription for the banned substance HCG?

‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘He just got caught.’

And there’s no shame in that?

‘I’m not saying there isn’t. But he’s not the only one doing it.’

Angel Cruz of Jersey City, N.J., wasn’t conflicted in the least when it comes to his feelings about Ramirez.

‘He’s a total disgrace to all the kids who look up to him,’ Cruz said. ‘He’s a plain cheater. He should never be allowed into the Hall of Fame.

‘If he was on my team, I’d be booing him. If [Mets star Carlos] Beltran or [Jose] Reyes got caught cheating, I wouldn’t want him on my team.’

So Cruz is a big fan of the anti-Ramirez sign, then?

‘I’m going to laminate it at work,’ he said.

-- Ben Bolch