Mannyitis

So all three baseball stories in the Boston Globe are 'Where's Manny'
So all three baseball stories in the Boston Herald are 'Where's Manny'

So what's new?

1)Manny Ramirez may have agreed to arrive at spring training next week but he is still pining for an escape to the West Coast, according to ex-teammate Orlando Cabrera.
Cabrera told the Orange County Register yesterday that Ramirez said in several offseason telephone conversations that he still wants to join him with the Angels.

2)FORT MYERS — Manny Ramirez’ teammates generally agreed that he’s receiving preferential treatment for being allowed to report to spring training six days after the Red Sox’ first full-squad workout. However, they said they don’t care as long as he continues to produce on the field.

3) Ramirez, who was due to check in with the rest of the Red Sox position players in Fort Myers today, reached an agreement with the team yesterday that will allow him to remain away until March 1, apparently training on his own at his Miami-area home until making the trek across the state on Alligator Alley.

4)FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Manny Ramírez, who through an agent in October threatened to boycott spring training if he were not traded, will not arrive at spring training today, the team's reporting date for position players. Instead, according to a joint statement issued yesterday by player and team, the slugger will join the Sox March 1 ''prepared to have an exceptional season."

5) Manny Ramírez, as we all know well, has frequently exercised the right to change his mind. So nothing, obviously, is etched in stone this morning.

But if he has indeed elected to withdraw from playing for the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic, that will make for an unhappy Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball and a primary proponent of the new international event.

While word of this possibility was making the rounds of the Red Sox clubhouse yesterday, in the aftermath of the club's announcement that Ramírez would be reporting here March 1, top baseball officials said yesterday afternoon that they had not been notified by Ramírez or his agent, Greg Genske. That included Gene Orza and Rob Manfred, lawyers for the union and the commissioner's office, respectively, and Manny Acta, the manager of the Dominican team, who as recently as Monday was showing reporters a prospective starting lineup that included the Sox left fielder.

6)All is normal with the Boston Red Sox. Manny Ramírez is going to be late getting to spring training.

This is why we love the Sox. A spring training without a Sox star showing up late would be like a Thanksgiving without the Detroit Lions on television. It would be like no swallows returning to Capistrano.

We need Pedro and the midget for this scene to be complete

And in the back of Cashman's mind ...The Cubs fail to re-sign Derrek Lee

But Sheffield should know nothing has changed. If he really wants to be a Yankee, he better have another menacing, 30-100 season and stray closer to low maintenance. At that point, on a one-year deal, Sheffield would again be a good purchase at $13 million. However, if Sheffield, now 37, hits 15 homers this season or suffers a major injury or causes more angst around the team than usual, he should expect to learn how meaningless yesterday's heart-to-heart was, even if Cashman said, "He's such a great player I would be surprised if in the end we did not pick up the option."
But here is something else that would not be a surprise after this year: The Cubs fail to re-sign Derrek Lee. The Yanks win a bidding war against the Red Sox by agreeing to pay the free-agent first baseman $13 million annually for five years. That moves Jason Giambi full-time to DH, motivates the Yanks to import a solid player/citizen type such as Jermaine Dye to play right and leaves Sheffield looking for employment.

Are we getting ahead of ourselves?

Curt is ready? Gooooooood. It will be so much sweeter

If you took everything Curt Schilling said yesterday and boiled it down to a slogan he could wear on a T-shirt, it would probably go something like this:

''I'm Back . . . and Somebody's Going to Pay."

That's a considerably sunnier message than the one Schilling was wearing a day earlier, on one of those vulgar novelty T-shirts he likes to wear in the privacy of the clubhouse and would require the services of a proctologist if taken literally. That he wore it Friday, with newspaper photographers clicking away and TV cameras rolling, is their problem, he said.

''It was a closed workout," he said. ''I wasn't trying to send a message to somebody. Must have been a slow news day."

He was clearly in the message business yesterday, when he emerged from the clubhouse at the Red Sox minor league training facility wearing a black T-shirt that read, ''Cowboy Up for Christ" on the back, took a seat on a bench in front of a phalanx of cameras, and proclaimed himself as fit as he has been in two years.

''I'm expecting to go out and do what I expected to go out and do in 2004," said the man who delivered a World Series title two years ago. ''I feel good, my arm feels great, my ankle feels good. There are no real health issues for me, knock on wood, right now, and I'm just looking to moving forward."

If you are inclined to make an issue about whether Schilling or newcomer Josh Beckett will get the ball on Opening Day, no point in stopping at Schilling's locker. The 39-year-old righthander, who spent a major chunk of his morning getting acquainted with Beckett, made it clear he is proceeding under the assumption that he will be on the hill in the Ballpark at Arlington when the Sox open the season April 3 against the Texas Rangers.

The only Yanks I wouldn't be happy to see open against him are Pavano or Wright. They give me that Contreras feeling as yet.
The best thing you can ever be, is underestimated.