Ramirez's suspension restricts him from addressing reporters, but to be fair, what Ramirez said could hardly be called that. He doesn't want to be a distraction, he apologized to the people he needed to apologize to, he wants to move on, he's ready to leave it all out on the field and let his game speak for him, he wants to give 120 percent, he's looking forward to having fun with his teammates, he's beginning to lactate, etc. etc.

Is he sorry for what he did? "That's what I said," he answered. Must have missed that.

And Manny wouldn't Be Manny if he didn't drop some perspective on everyone before leaving:

"I didn't kill nobody, I didn't rape nobody, so that's it..."

Give the guy a break already.

Manny Ramirez visits with teammates [ESPN]
Ramirez speaks but says little about suspension [LA Times]

The Red Sox were blissfully enjoying a quiet Spring Training with very little melodrama, then along comes the interview talk and now baseball talk in Fort Myers is once again plagued by the dreaded "M" word. Papelbon isn't backing down from his initial comments, telling the Boston Globe that he's not there to "sugarcoat" anything.

And out come the war analogies:

"It takes 25 guys on a team to win, not 24, and that was blatantly obvious," Papelbon said after the Red Sox' workout at City of Palms Park. "It doesn't matter who you are - you could be Babe Ruth - if you're not in that same cubbyhole with the rest of the guys going to war with you, you're all going to die. That almost happened."

It's amazing that the Red Sox persevered through last season — they were almost killed by a teammate who was both carcinogenic and a rogue soldier.

Manny (being Manny) chose to ignore Papelbon's comments, unwilling to become a distraction to his temporary Los Angeles teammates.

"I'm here, not there anymore. I moved on," he told MLB.com.

Papelbon blasts Ramirez [Boston.com]

Manny Ramirez tried to make a game of it with a 3-run shot that barely cleared the wall, but the team ended up succumbing to the mighty Phillies bullpen, managing only a pair of hits in the final four innings. If you turned off your TV after the 4th inning, you didn’t miss much. The Dodgers take the series back to LA on Sunday, when Randy Newman will collect another $6 million in royalty checks for that shitty song.

In other news, everyone’s moms are dying! Charlie Manuel managed the game with a heavy heart after learning that his mom had died that morning, and hero Shane Victorino found out after the game that his grandmama kicked the bucket. Stay tuned to see which Phillies player is going to be the recipient of the dreaded Rule of Three.

• Red Sox 2, Rays 0
Dice-K didn’t look like he’d last long after a 1st inning that saw him walk the bases loaded in roughly 3,923 pitches, but from there the man was dominant, striking out 9 and holding the Rays hitless until a Carl Crawford single in the 7th. Buster Olney described Dice-K’s pitching as “rope-a-dope”, which seems just about right. A lesser reporter would call it “effectively wild”, but when one is Asian, one gets a bit more leniency that they’re being purposefully deceptive. Papelbon closed it out with a perfect inning and presumably did his goofy dance alone in the privacy of his hotel room.

On the Rays side of the game, not much happened. James Shields pitched well enough to win, but Carl Crawford gave the BoSox a gift run when a ball bounced off his mitt. Carlos Pena ended any threat of a comeback by deciding to take Joe Maddon up on his 3-0 green light signal in the 7th, popping into a weak fly ball.

As far as brawls go – this marks our greatest chance for a classic postseason fight, after all – there wasn’t much to get excited about. Grant Balfour hit J.D. Drew in the shoulder which caused Dustin Pedroia to go to the first step of the dugout and do his best Caveman impression, but besides that, peace prevailed.

The Red Sox suspect that GM Omar Minaya wants Ramirez more than Mets ownership does. Regardless, the Mets are reluctant to part with top-prospect talent in exchange for outfielders like Adam Dunn, Raul Ibanez and Randy Winn, but they (rightly) consider Ramirez a far superior hitter to those in that group, and they would discuss players in a Ramirez deal that they would not discuss in others. What remains to be seen is whether a Ramirez deal is too complicated to come together in time for the deadline.

Meanwhile, Mets bloggers have visions of jheri curls dancing in their heads.

Trade for this guy at all costs. I'd be willing to part with Jon Niese, Eddie Kunz or some package of a few top prospects for this high caliber player. He's a professional hitter, and would take over left field for the Mets, something they dearly need for the stretch. Jerry Manuel seems like the kind of guy who would be able to keep Ramirez in line, and Omar Minaya has always had a love for Manny. Could you imagine Manny in a Mets uniform? Oh man.

NY Mets Have Been In Contact With Red Sox About Manny Ramirez [The Star-Ledger]
Trade For Manny Ramirez At All Costs [The 'Ropolitans]

Here's what Manny said on Sunday, prior to Boston's 9-2 win over the Yankees:

"I don't want to talk to them about contracts right now. So what? I know they got me, but enough is enough. I'm tired of them, they're tired of me. After 2008, just send me a letter or whatever. You don't even got to call my agent or whatever. 'Hey, thank you for everything. You're going to become a free agent. We're not going to pick up your option in '09.' "

As George Costanza would say: "A pre-emptive breakup. Brilliant!" But is this what we really want? I just can't imagine Manny being anywhere near as entertaining anywhere else as he is with Boston. With the Yankees he'd be swallowed up in the whole A-Rod/Jeter/Steinbrenner miasma; the Mets have already said no; and no one else could afford him/put up with his shenanigans. Manny as a Mariner? As a Phillie? An Oriole? It's like Jughead without his crown.

The only solution is for he and the Red Sox to make up. Come on, guys: There's more than two months left, and Sunday was a good start.

Salvage Operation [Boston Globe]

I once asked a prominent relief pitcher to describe the most idiotic thing he had witnessed in the big leagues. "That's easy," he said, and launched into the story of a former teammate—an All-Star outfielder—who refused to use toilet paper. A clubhouse attendant supplied the player with a daily ration of hand towels, which, when soiled, would be flushed.

One afternoon the reliever came in from batting practice to find the locker room awash in frantic maintenance workers. When he asked a plumber what all the fuss was about, he was told that a washcloth-clogged toilet had overflowed and was threatening to submerge the bathroom stalls. "Of all the dumb stuff I've seen that particular outfielder do," the stopper told me, "that was the dumbest."

That particular outfielder was, of course, Manny Ramirez.

Oh to be one of the hundreds of flies on the wall in the Red Sox locker room that day.

Clock ticks on Manny moments [Portfolio]

Boston Red Sox' left fielder Manny Ramirez once again showed off his goofball side during yesterday's shellacking of the Minnesota Twins, to the head-shaking delight of ManRam fans everywhere, after he took some time away from concentrating on baseball to eat up some overtime minutes.

According to the Boston Globe's Extra Bases, during the sixth-inning Man Ram climbed into the Green Monster to talk on a cellphone as Javier Lopez came in for Josh Beckett.

Compared to some of his other memorable antics, this is about a "4" on the Manny-being-Manny-ness scale, but you can't really blame him for getting a little bored out there during an 18-5 game. Maybe he was calling Livan Hernandez and offering him a pep talk? Or extending congratulations to his buddy Julian Tavarez on being picked up by Atlanta?

Manny's call from the wall [Extra Bases]