Manny Ramirez; an Illustration on What is Wrong With Society

 It has been a couple of weeks since Manny Ramirez was traded from the Red Sox to the Dodgers. Let me start off by saying that from a baseball perspective I will miss watching Manny hit. I loved to watch him swing the bat. I was going to write this post whether Manny was traded or not. I offer this disclaimer so that people who think that I am just jumping on him now that he is gone will understand that this is not just a case of kicking somebody on their way out of town. Besides this post is more geared to Manny’s loyalist followers that to Manny himself.

 Manny Ramirez has had many baseball transgressions over the years he was in Boston, from the lack of running out ground balls to turning a single into a double while in left field, or a double into a single by not hustling out of the box. All of these transgressions where laughed at by Boston fans as “Manny being Manny.”  I will be the first to admit that many of them were comical. Some of them were aggravating, but never were they malevolent.

 Some Boston sports talk show hosts didn’t find all of these transgressions comical and often wondered when would the fans think that Manny went too far. Yet the fans vehemently defended him because he could hit.

But there comes a time when certain “issues” are not so comical. In early June Manny Ramirez punched his teammate, Kevin Youkilis, in the head (in the dugout). Some sports radio talk show hosts fumed, while fans and other talk show hosts defended him. Most fans justified this action by saying that is probably happens all the time in the clubhouse but that fans just don’t see it. It’s just Manny being Manny. HAHAHA just look at the funny baseball player.

 In late June Manny Ramirez became angered at Jack McCormick, a Red Sox employee, because McCormick wasn’t able to come up with 16 tickets to a sold out Red Sox road game just hours before game time. Manny was so furious with McCormick that he threw him to the ground. Jack McCormick is in his sixties, yet Manny pushed him hard enough to knock him to the ground because he felt McCormick wasn’t doing his job. Now Manny was being malevolent and this behavior should never have been tolerated by Red Sox fans, but it was.

 Again some talk show hosts fumed while others said “stuff like this happens all the time”, fans agreed with the latter philosophy. Shit like this happens all the time according to the most loyal Ramirez defenders. It’s just Manny being Manny. Ramirez loyalists also defended him by saying that nobody knew the whole story.

 Critical sports talk show hosts began to ask the question, “what would it take for fans to turn on Ramirez if punching a teammate and pushing a sixty year old man to the ground didn’t?”

 It didn’t take us long to find out. The week before the trade, Manny faked an injury and sat out of the first Red Sox- Yankees game in a three game series. This began to draw the ire of the fans. Less than a week later in the seventh inning of a game in which the Red Sox were being no hit Manny didn’t hustle out of the box on a grounder that would have been a hit with just a little bit of hustle. The boos reigned down.

 This whole sequence of events has had me thinking over the last few weeks about where we stand as a society. The last transgression that ownership was willing to put up with was Manny pushing down a senior citizen yet the fans still supported him. When did they turn on him? Not until he sinned by missing a Yankees game.

 Fans didn’t give a damn about the fact that Manny assaulted a sixty year old man, a crime that would have led to charges if he were not a baseball player. This was the act of a thug, a punk, and an ungrateful piece of shit. But just let him sit out a Yankees game or not try to break up a no-hitter and the fans can’t overlook that.

 Where have we gone wrong as a society when we are willing to overlook an assault because a man can hit a baseball but are unwilling to forgive someone for missing a game against an arch rival? What is a bigger sin, a sin against baseball or a sin against another human being?

 I find it laughable, if not sad, that people are willing to overlook a baseball player assaulting a senior citizen, but not a baseball transgression. This seems to me to be misplaced priorities at best and misguided morals at worse. It seems as though the whole idea of right and wrong is being lost on the American people. The idea that a behavior is just misunderstood and therefor not necessarily bad has crept into the minds of the American people as liberalism spreads the “no consequences for your actions” mindset.

 There was a time when assaulting a senior citizen would have been unthinkable as would be defending and routing for the man who committed the crime. That time has passed us by as liberalism has taken away all judgement of right and wrong. As a society of morals we are losing ground and this is just one case that I chose to try to illustrate this.

Manny committed an act that should not have been overlooked or defended by Red Sox fans, he committed a violent act against another person, that is much, much worse than anything he ever did on the baseball field (even taking a piss inside the wall and not getting back on the field in time for the first pitch) yet it has been overlooked and defended.

 After all, it’s just Manny being Manny.