Manny To Dodgers, Bay To Red Sox, Little People To Pirates ... Mass Hysteria

Only trade deadline day can make the Intertubes blow up at 4:30 p.m. in the afternoon. Well, unless Heath Ledger dies. Anyway, Jon Heyman's got it: Manny Ramirez has been traded to the Dodgers. His manager is Joe Torre. Muse on that.

The details are still filtering in — that is to say, Heyman is typing them up really fast — but it appears Jason Bay is going to the Red Sox and the Pirates have a bunch of people only Joe Sheehan has heard of.

MLB.com has a conflicting report, but one suspects they'll take that down soon and pretend it didn't happen.

But yes: The Boston Red Sox have traded Manny Ramirez. It's like learning that Santa Claus lost 300 pounds. Sure, it's probably best for his short-term and long-term health ... but man, it just won't feel like Santa, will it?

I'll let Daulerio and the gang analyze it all, but ... right now, they needed someone who types really fast.

(UPDATE: The best part of Heyman's dispatch:

The announcement will be made in conjunction with a World Baseball Classic announcement at Dodger Stadium shortly.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure that WBC announcement's gonna get a lot of play now. "Excuse us, but before we talk about Manny, we'd like to introduce you to the uniforms South Korea will be wearing this year.")

(SECOND UPDATE: Those weren't "little people" at all: The Red Sox sent Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss to Pittsburgh. The Dodgers ship over Andy LaRoche and some guy named Bryan Morris. Doesn't it kind of seem like the Red Sox gave up a lot to get rid of Manny? I assume the Dodgers are picking up Manny's salary the rest of the year ... but still.)

(THIRD UPDATE: Just for the record, ESPN ... despite your claims, Amy K. Nelson was not the first to report the Manny trade. It was Jon Heyman. Everyone was watching. We all know better.)

(FOURTH UPDATE: ESPN, chastened (ha!), has taken down the claim that they broke the Manny story. We're sure Amy K. Nelson did great work today ... but she didn't break that story.)