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So Many Rumors, but No Manny Deal

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Seven minutes before the Boston Red Sox would play to maintain their 2 1/2 -game lead over the New York Yankees on Saturday night, it was announced Manny Ramirez would not be batting cleanup or playing left field.

Already he’d skipped batting practice and had not thrown a pregame baseball, making for a pretty light shift as far as his work day had gone.

As the trade appeared to die somewhere in the muggy corridor between here and Flushing, N.Y., Red Sox Manager Terry Francona said it was he who chose to give Ramirez a couple of mental welfare days, and that Ramirez agreed it was probably best. So, as the race in the American League East remained taut and on the verge of August, Ramirez will sit out a second day today, according to Francona, his fourth personal day since Wednesday.

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Francona said he suggested to Ramirez in a meeting 30 minutes before game time, “that he sit and clear his head, take a few deep breaths, go tonight and tomorrow, have a [scheduled] off-day Monday, and he agreed.”

Later, near the end of a week in which it was revealed that Ramirez had requested a trade, and then was booed at Fenway Park on Friday night, Francona observed, “I think he’s got some things flying around in his head.”

As theories gathered around Fenway, Boston was left to ponder if its Manny had been traded to the New York Mets, and whether anybody should be sad about that.

Through the course of Saturday, in the hours before the trading deadline and as various Manny watches went unrewarded, negotiations between the Red Sox, Mets and Tampa Bay Devil Rays shoved around big league players, minor league players and money. The principals remained Ramirez, who would go to the Mets, and Mike Cameron, who would go to the Red Sox.

The rest became a blur of Aubrey Huff to the Red Sox, Danys Baez to the Mets and prospects sprinkled over the Devil Rays, though midday brought word that the Devil Rays had fallen out and Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein and Met General Manager Omar Minaya had carried on alone.

By evening, the Mets were grumbling that Red Sox demands had risen beyond what they considered reasonable, and told New York writers that they’d made their best -- and final -- offer for Ramirez.

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Posturing, perhaps. But the sense among Red Sox officials was that Ramirez was still theirs, for better or worse. The players lean toward the former.

“Hopefully, Manny will still be here the rest of the year,” Johnny Damon said. “I think Terry knows what he’s doing. Terry knows we need to have Manny’s mind right. With Manny’s mind right, he’s going to be a lot better player. He’s got a lot going on in his head.”

With three days off, Damon said, “Hopefully, he can figure out what needs to be done with his career and do the best thing possible.”

Meanwhile, the Red Sox had attempted to carry on as if they weren’t about to trade one of the game’s great hitters -- and salary commensurate to it -- but Saturday concluded the pretense. With Ramirez absent, John Olerud hit cleanup, Kevin Millar played left and the Red Sox beat the Minnesota Twins, 6-2. Afterward, Ramirez, in a conspicuously white uniform, was among the first out of the dugout to congratulate those who had played; the crowd cheered him and chanted his name, “Manny! Manny! Manny!”

Near the end of a period in which some of the notable moves were the Yankees dredging up such names as Hideo Nomo, Al Leiter and Darrell May, it was kind of Ramirez’s discontent to arrive just in time for the trading deadline.

When Ramirez decided he wanted out -- he left a game early last Friday night and got busy text-messaging his displeasure to friends before the game was over -- one could hear Minaya screech all the way to the Hamptons.

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In a July otherwise filled with rumors of Burnetts and Huffs, of Dunns and Wagners, of failed Nevins and successful Nevins, an available Ramirez could have altered everything.

There also had been talk about a Ramirez-for-Alfonso Soriano deal, though the Texas Rangers perhaps have had their fill of over-the-top contracts, and by Saturday night the Minnesota Twins believed they had a shot at Soriano. The Florida Marlins have the resources -- A.J. Burnett as the centerpiece -- to interest the Red Sox, but probably not the payroll.

Young Theo has until four o’clock Red Sox Nation time today to choose the direction of the franchise and whether Ramirez has anything to do with it.

Any deal involving Ramirez amounts to a downgrade for the Red Sox, who, this side of Derrek Lee, wouldn’t find another player to match Ramirez’s production. It could ultimately cost them the AL East, unless they -- and not the Mets -- were able to squeeze Baez out of the Devil Rays and Curt Schilling was really ready to pitch seven innings every five days.

But it took only three or four trade demands for the Red Sox to determine the occasionally unstable Ramirez wanted out, the last request coming on the verge of the stretch run, and nine months after he was MVP of their first World Series title in 87 years.

Past and present teammates of Ramirez insist the Red Sox made two mistakes when they allowed Pedro Martinez to drift off to New York last winter. They weakened a starting rotation they knew might not have Schilling for long stretches of this season and definitely would not have Derek Lowe, and they weakened their control over Ramirez, who looked to Martinez when his world would begin to wobble.

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For whatever reasons this time -- he hated the way friend Millar was being phased out at first base, he suspected the Red Sox were too curious about his off-field habits, he simply tired of the game again -- Ramirez arrived at a familiar conclusion: Trade me.

It is a terrible burden when $20 million a year and first place and an adoring city are not satisfaction enough, but this is what apparently haunts Ramirez, one of the wonderful hitters and sulkers of our time. The Mets and, in particular, Minaya believe Ramirez’s attributes are greater than the sum of his ailments, and if Ramirez ever gets that far, he’ll find Martinez in his new clubhouse, not far from where he was raised in Washington Heights.

Faced with the awkwardness of their best player refusing to play Wednesday night, even as Trot Nixon was being carted to the disabled list and Matt Clement to the hospital -- Ramirez told Francona he needed the rest -- Boston executives insisted they would consider trading Ramirez only on baseball merits. That is, Ramirez, 33, would not be a salary dump, not in the midst of holding off the Yankees, not with Damon already on the brink of free agency.

Rather than trouble themselves with a malingering Manny, however, the Red Sox thought it best to call Minaya.

The only surprise is that Minaya, who adores Ramirez, wasn’t standing outside Fenway Park on Monday morning.

Ramirez is due about $7 million for the rest of this season and $57 million over the next three seasons. As complicating as that sounds, he also was to become a 10-and-5 player at the end of the season, which would allow him veto power over future trades, a headache they’d rather avoid.

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But, only a few hours remain to the deadline. Then again, they might be able to get him through waivers.

They’ve done that before too.

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Bats and Pieces

Dusty Baker would like to return to Los Angeles to manage the Dodgers, according to a person close to the Chicago Cub manager.

Baker, who played eight seasons for the Dodgers, is unhappy in Chicago, where he has managed the Cubs for 2 1/2 years, the source said. Baker has 1 1/2 years left on a contract that coincides with current Dodger manager Jim Tracy’s, though Tracy could opt out of his contract after this season.

According to the source, “Dusty wants desperately to manage the Dodgers ... and [supporters] would love to get a buzz going about Dusty in case the Dodgers were thinking of letting Tracy go at the end of the season.

“He would love the Dodgers to come calling and then hope the Cubs would let him go.”

That would be a departure from Baker’s previous feelings about the Dodgers.

When he left the organization for San Francisco after the 1983 season, Baker believed he had been betrayed by rumors of drug involvement and once vowed to never work for the Dodgers again.

Presumably, Tracy will manage the Dodgers for at least another season.

While there are signs that Tracy and General Manager Paul DePodesta don’t always share common baseball philosophies (Hee-Seop Choi’s participation, for one), DePodesta appears satisfied with Tracy’s work.

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The body of evidence, so far, says Tracy stays through 2006, the end of his two-year extension.

Baker managed the San Francisco Giants for 10 seasons that included three postseason appearances and one World Series.

After the 2002 season, he signed a four-year, $15-million contract to manage the Cubs, and came within a win of the World Series in his first season in Chicago.

Those who know Baker often have put his final job in Arizona, where he would work for Jeff Moorad, his longtime friend and agent who now is a general partner there.

He’s the one who wanted New York. Now Randy Johnson, in all of six months, has tired of the attention, the questions, the attitudes. Asked about his ailing back after a between-starts bullpen session last Sunday in Anaheim, Johnson blistered reporters for prying. “You’re like kids in the backseat: ‘Are we almost there?’ ” Johnson told them.

He continued to chide reporters by saying, “Disneyland is 15 minutes away. We’re almost there.” He finally added with a heavy sigh, “This place is unbelievable.”

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There was more along that theme, one well-worn in New York, where early deadlines and large numbers of reporters have exhausted better and more patient players than Johnson.

But, suggesting he required a 10-minute “cooling-off period” after a side session is, I believe, a first.

Good news for Brian Cashman: Scott Erickson’s available!

After cobbling together Leiter, May, Nomo, Tim Redding, Alan Embree and other last-chancers to fill out his $200-million payroll, Cashman told the New York Post, “I feel like the Statue of Liberty. ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.’ ”

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