Manny Ramirez

The Milwaukee Brewers had a decision to make in the third inning Sunday at Miller Park. The Phillies had a runner on third with two outs, Ryan Howard at the plate, and Pat Burrell on deck. Should they pitch to Howard, who led the majors in home runs and RBIs, or Burrell, who had been hitless in the National League division series? Should they have the righthanded Jeff Suppan face Howard, the lefthanded hitter, or Burrell, the righthanded hitter? The Brewers followed the textbook.

It's kind of ironic that the Los Angeles Dodgers come into Citizens Bank Park tonight all full of smiles and good feelings. When you think about it, their road to the National League Championship Series started with a bad mood. Manny Ramirez was feuding with his employers in Boston. Red Sox officials weren't sure if they would pick up his $20 million option for 2009, and they were too busy thinking about this season to worry about it. You know the rest of the story. Ramirez decided he wanted out. He pouted and went into shutdown mode.

Be sure of this much: When Manny Ramirez walks to the plate for the first time tomorrow night for the Dodgers, Fox analyst and former Phillie Tim McCarver won't pull his punches. Never has, never will. "It's extraordinary - the dichotomy between what he was in Boston and what he is in Los Angeles," McCarver said. "I mean, talk about wearing out your welcome in a town, and it was a long welcome with the Red Sox. But some of the things he did were simply despicable, despicable - like not playing, refusing to play.

Manny Ramirez has proved to be one of the biggest difference makers of the 2008 season - for what he's meant to the Los Angeles Dodgers and what he hasn't meant to the Boston Red Sox. The Dodgers finally ran down the Arizona Diamondbacks last weekend, taking over first place in the National League West for the first time since April 4. The Dodgers went from 4 1/2 games back to 1 1/2 up thanks to an eight-game winning streak in which Ramirez hit...

The final two months of the regular season are upon us and playoff races are beginning to crackle. But on this third day of August, we take a look back at some of the wheeling and dealing of July. Manny moves on. In some ways, it's still difficult to believe. Sure, Manny Ramirez asked the Boston Red Sox to trade him in the past. Yeah, they floated his name on waivers to gauge interest a few years ago. But did you ever believe they'd trade a bat like that? Everything seemed to be going well for Ramirez just a couple of months ago. He hit his 500th homer.

Relief in the Bronx The Yankees were giddy at batting practice Thursday evening, as news rushed through the clubhouse and around the field - Manny Ramirez was gone. The reason is simple - Manny owned the Yankees. In his 15-plus years in the bigs, all in the AL with either Cleveland or Boston, Ramirez faced the Bronx Bombers in exactly 200 games. The numbers: a .321 batting average, 55 home runs and 163 RBIs. "He's incredibly smart," Yankees pitcher Darrell Rasner told Jeff Passan of Yahoo!

Manny being Manny. Charlie Manuel knew what that was long before the rest of the baseball world, long before the expression was coined. He got his first glimpse of it in June 1993, when he was manager of Cleveland's triple-A Charlotte club and Manny Ramirez was an Indians prospect on a fast track to the big leagues. Manuel, the Phillies' fourth-year manager, started laughing recently when he recalled the day Ramirez arrived in Charlotte. Ramirez came right from the airport to the ballpark.

BOSTON - A circle of humanity squeezed around him as words poured out of his grinning mouth. Manny Ramirez was talking again. Let the fun begin. One caveat: To take part, you had to speak Spanish, or at least understand it. And for all the potential those Rosetta Stones offer at those airport kiosks, there is not one documented example of a sports writer emerging from a flight with an added language as part of his skill set. So the ring around...

A year ago, baseball's winter meetings were more yawnfest than swapfest. The typical December wheeling and dealing practically slowed to a halt as teams waited to see whether free-agent price tags would fall, and whether the Montreal Expos would hold a fire sale. When the meetings ended, frustrated general managers and agents headed home with little to show for their trip to Nashville. Inaction should not be a problem this year as the meetings begin today in New Orleans.