Thank you for helping us to win two World Series.  Thank you for thrilling us with clutch hits and adventurous fielding.  Thank you for all you’ve done.

But it’s time for you to go.

The thing is, Manny, you’ve never been one to explain why you do the things you do.  So when you do really crazy stuff, or when you look like you’re not trying, it leaves us to wonder.  Like we did in ’06, when it seemed you pretty much tanked the season in September.  Like you’re doing now, by suddenly having a “bad knee” every time a hard-throwing right hander is pitching.  There comes a point where everyone, even those who support you and give you the benefit of the doubt (like me), seriously start to question if you’re helping or hurting the cause. 

These behaviors add up over time, and at some point they reach critical mass.  At that point, what once seemed cute, preoccupied, ditzy, or just plain fun, changes into something negative.  It becomes a problem.  It becomes a concern, a distraction, an annoyance.  It morphs into selfishness, hubris, entitlement, and arrogance. That time has come, Manny, and has passed.  Those behaviors don’t seem childlike anymore; they are simply childish.  The verbal shots at management, the pulling yourself out of games, that absurd play in left field the other night, not running out grounders, shoving a 61-year-old man to the ground…. these things aren’t endearing anymore.  They’re ugly. 

Manny, you have done so much for us.  So did Pedro and Nomar, two other Red Sox icons who just basically became too big for their britches.  They asked for too much, they became a surly and negative team distraction, and they had to go.

So do you.

I wish I could say that it would be great for you to play out this year and increase the market for your services next year on another team, but quite frankly, I don’t believe you will.  So the choice becomes 1) keep you this year, hope you play well, decline your option, and say adios; or 2) trade you now and get someone like Jason Bay, who puts up great numbers too, but a lot more quietly, and last I checked, doesn’t pull himself out of games where his bat is desperately needed.

I hope that whatever we do, it is the right thing.  This version of Red Sox management has so far made mostly good decisions resulting in huge success.  I hope the trend continues.  The latest word is that a three-team deal with Pittsburgh and Florida is about to go down, and I admit I’m sad.  But it’s a different kind of sadness, Manny.  It’s the sadness of inevitability, something unavoidable and unpleasant, that you know you have to do. 

Thank you Manny, I loved watching you play.  I’ll tell my grandkids someday that I watched you dozens of times, that you were one of the most purely talented hitters I ever saw.  That you were the last one to leave the cage every day.  That I witnessed myself how hard you work at being the best, something few people who are not Sox fans truly understand.  I’ll talk about the great championships you led us to.   I hope wherever you go, you continue to have great success and further cement your place in history as one of the greatest ever.  You always will be in my book.

Thank you, Manny.  Goodbye, and good luck.

David Barry
Red Sox fan since 1984