Matt Joyce

I know what you're saying.
Who the hell is he?
Oh, he's only leading the league in batting with a .370 average through the end of May. With his home run tonight, he only has 9 home runs for the season in the relative obscurity of Tampa Bay who don't seem to do anything wrong. They get rid of players, and new heroes spring up to take their place. Carl who? Let the fans throw money at Crawford since he seemed to let Boston throw money at him for such a pathetic average and performance until last week's player of the week award (kind of a back-handed compliment of "it's about time" after all of those weeks of crap play). After parts of 3 years in the bigs, Joyce is exploding in year 4.
Sure, there are whiffs, but there are also a lot of doubles, a few triples, and some stolen bases.
There is potential south of the baseball border (because nobody pays attention to baseball in Florida until the teams get it together for the playoffs - see the Marlins for that as well).
And maybe now, Evan Longoria won't have to call out fans for support. Maybe David Price won't have to shoulder the show on his own as he's actually the third best pitcher on the staff this year behind James Shields and Jeremy Hellickson. Maybe it doesn't matter if the Rays have a reliever going into game 1 (because Kyle Farnsworth has come to play). Maybe it's all going to go right as the 3 team scuffle for the AL East gets serious (and it's anyone's race with 3 teams this close).
Maybe we can forget the 0-6 start.
Maybe we can forget Manny Ramirez's downside and focus on Johnny Damon's unwanted self being the upside in Tampa Bay.
Maybe we can see a team struggling to get it together as a long hot summer is surely promised on East Coast. Maybe the Orioles and Blue Jays have a chance too (and maybe I have a chance at the $200million top prize on Powerball on Wednesday).

Manny Ramirez

If the whole Lady Gaga thing wasn't already on overload and annoying as hell (because let's be honest, short of one song - "Speechless" - that she actually plays on, she's a much less talented rip off of Madonna)... we now get Baby Gaga, which is actually breast milk ice cream.
Lady Gaga has threatened to sue the British manufacturers over the flavor of ice cream.
Whether she will be successful or not, the Brits seized the ice cream and tested it to make sure that it was OK for human consumption and found that it is.
In addition, the store owner Matt O' Connor has fired back: "She claims we have 'ridden the coattails' of her reputation. As someone who has plagiarised and recycled on an industrial scale, the entire back catalogue of pop-culture to create her look, music and videos, she might want to re-consider this allegation."
We can only hope that something sane comes of this, but until then, we'll let anyone who wants to pay $22 for this "delicacy" to keep on keeping on. We'll go back to our own lives and contemplate weirdness on terms that we can relate to...
Manny Ramirez being Manny Ramirez.
In this, Manny has already been definitively studied (Bill Simmons did that), but let us say that since he has a new home - Tampa Bay - we have to wish him the best.
Since his days of getting ostracized by my wife for not paying his child support (back at the Jake in Cleveland when he was a member of the Indians), he went on to massive success unparalleled in Boston. He was a grand slam machine (tied with A-Rod for 2nd to Lou Gehrig all time). He was instrumental in winning the World Series in 2004 and 2007. He was David "Big Sluggi" Ortiz's lovable and idiotic sidekick with those really bad dreadlocks. He would blow easy plays in the outfield while making difficult plays. He would urinate inside the Fenway Park scoreboard during a game. He would demand trades, and then, he finally got traded to the Dodgers, who he managed to convince that he could be great... until he got injured and got nailed for steroids and then he basically quit on them, too, after getting $40million for 2 years (and they were basically bidding against themselves for his services), so off he went to the White Sox where he really and truly sucked, but he was still Manny being Manny without the offense - just being offensive.
So now, he's back with the other idiot - Johnny Damon - in Tampa Bay as they both look to resuscitate their careers that pretty much dried up after the glory days of the first decade of the 21st century.
And while there is hope... it's really going to be a case of too little too late unless he breaks the grand slam record or hits .350, and at this point in his career... without sexual enhancers or whatever it it was that he used when and Big Sluggi both seemed to get fingered on the Mitchell Report, there is not going to be a career resuscitation and while Tampa Bay can hope for the best in the year that Carl Crawford walked and they had to bring up rookies and a few older names at league minimum value to keep the few fans that they do have attending, but the reality is...
The weirdness just isn't lovable without production.
I can't wait until the world wakes up to that realization about Lady Gaga as well.

Johnny Damon

Every time that I watch Fever Pitch, I can't decide if I actually like the movie, or if I want to drown Jimmy Fallon for his annoyingness. At the writing of this blog, I'm going with like it - but it's just barely.
The thing is that Jimmy Fallon is really annoying. I'm sure that he's only a fair weather Yankees fan (just like his convenient switch to Boston for the movie), but yeah... that's a big part of it.
Then there's the unlikeable factor of Drew Barrymore in the movie. I mean, who would take her to a baseball game, much less want to sell his season tickets to get back with her? Is there nobody else out there who is any better than her? Is Fallon's Red Sox obsession that problematic that he can't get another woman other than her (OK, this is probably true, but still... there are more tolerable women who would put up with him for a shot at those seats, I'm sure).
In addition, there's something about the whole Curse of Babe Ruth that permeated this Farrelly Brothers movie based on a book about soccer by Nick Hornby that really wanted to have another losing season and when the Red Sox surprisingly won it all, it was like... how can we get the reality that is going on in late October 2004 to be current in the movie.
So they went and let Fallon and Barrymore celebrate in St. Louis as if they were real fans who had been dying for this moment since the last time that the Red Sox were there in 1918. This really wasn't cool, but yeah...
Maybe I'm just nitpicking. There are good parts in the movie, but they aren't the ones that center around King Idiot Johnny Damon, who did his damnedest to leave Boston for a larger contract elsewhere when he was beloved in New England. While he wanted another year, he didn't have to sell his soul to do it.
And look what happened? The Yankees NEVER embraced him. He left for the Tigers and he left again for Tampa Bay. He's not exactly a spring chicken after all of those years in Kansas City (his rookie year was 95).
Now, he's hitting the apex of a career where he was never more loved than he was for the long hair and the Jesus beard. I remember what I did with the shirt I used to wear (picture to the left). He was Benedict Arnold, and now he's an afterthought looking for a place in an AL East wanna be transitional year team (and maybe they can be again, but it will never be like 2008 with the Crawford-less Rays).
But surely I digress into Johnny Damon's recent transgressions, which could easily apply to Manny Ramirez as well, but alas...
The point is that there are good parts to the movie. There is a love of baseball that makes one block out the world and want to watch games over being with other human beings at parties and the like. There are good things to it and those center around its enjoyable goodness, but it's not Bull Durham when it comes to movies.
But that's just me.

Manny Ramirez

Ok, let's get this straight. Even Manny Ramirez gets a fourth chance.
In a sign that $2million a year for a formerly $20million a year player in free agency is a bargain, the Rays decided that giving Manny (who according to my wife didn't pay his child support when she went to a Cleveland Indians game way back when and heckled him for such) that money was nothing but upside.
If he screws up, it couldn't be worse than giving an outfielder with $2million value the money for 1 year (no incentives either!). If he's productive and healthy (because not being injured and cantankerous is pretty much everything), well then it's everything that Mannywood was supposed to be in Los Angeles except it's in the Tropicana and it's all comeback against the Red Sox who let him slip away.
It's hard to say everything about Manny that truly needs said. Something about using steroids and trying to blame it on sexual performance enhancers didn't have us believing. Hell, he's not on my short list of people who I would bat an eyelash over:
1. Cal Ripken Jr.
2. Derek Jeter
3. Ichiro Suzuki
4. Albert Pujols
5. Mariano Rivera
6. Curt Schilling
This is especially true when both he and Big Sluggi - the hitter formerly known as David "Big Papi" Ortiz, who is now just hanging around Boston for no good reason and past memories (but we do remember the good things and I've got your jersey to prove it) were nailed for the PEDs. I can literally remember being with my friend Dale sitting in the restaurant of an off track wagering place watching the news come up on a television screen. Oh... big sluggers nailed for steroids... hmm...
Hell, most things that Manny did had us wanting to ship him out as soon as possible. The Bill Simmons column on him explains everything in such vivid detail, you should just read that.
Two years in LA. Lots of money coming his way. The future is wide open, only it's not.
From 19 home runs in LA in 2009 to 9 home runs in LA and Chi-Town in all of 2010 in just over 270 at bats (those pesky injuries)... it's a curse... something like that. The year of the pitcher... or not. Not that 350 at bats the year before was much better. That's over $40million well spent.
So perhaps that's why Johnny Damon is getting more and the offer of incentives... potential upside (whereas Manny is all hope).
Manny turning it all around... it's a nice story. We want to write it. Really.
Scott Boras and Manny really want us to write it.
Will we?
Time will tell.

Vladamir Guerrero

There's something to be said for the waiting. As Tom Petty once said, it's the hardest part, but the old proverb says that good things come to those who wait. I'm hoping that's true since I keep filling out applications and sending out resumes in hopes of more and better employment, which should be something in my wheelhouse because now I have a Masters Degree, but alas... the waiting continues.
It continues for Manny Ramirez, too, but after his dismal showing in Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago, his suitors are non-existent in much the same way they were for Barry Bonds after his last season. This is a guy who hit .276 and 28 home runs in his final season. Never mind that he led the league with 132 walks, of which 43 were intentional (he had 120/232 official intentional base on balls in his 2004 season). In addition, his OPS was 1.045, which isn't slouch numbers, but that said, he was a steroids guy who was rather hated, so nobody wanted him other than San Francisco, who only wanted him long enough to set the HR record, and when that was done...
Now, nobody wants Manny. I guess that's because he's a steroids guy with a bad attitude as well.
For a second season in a row, nobody seems to want to take a chance on Johnny Damon, the adorable "Idiot" of the 2004 Red Sox, who gave it all up to go to New York for more years. Can't blame him, but the plan isn't panning out lately despite his .271 average and 51 RBIs for a season with Detroit. All in all, it was a better season than the one in Oakland before he went to Boston, but yeah... still up for grabs.
And we all remember Tom Verducci's telling of the Carl Pavano tale in his book about Joe Torre. We knew most of it already, but we got to read it from the perspective of the Yankees. Somehow, after injuries, he rebounded last year going 17-11 with a 3.75 ERA and 117 strikeouts. They're not shabby numbers, and they tell the tale of a man who rebounded from obscurity to make something of himself again, but alas, he's still out there in limbo.
And Jim Thome, while a full time DH is sitting on 589 home runs, which gives him a chance to hit 600 for a career, but other than rumors, he has no guaranteed spot on a roster.
Perhaps this is the era we're in where teams respect records by not signing players - or signing specific players, but alas, there are a lot of veterans, either steroids mirages or above average numbers inflated by the era who aren't signed.
And so it goes all the way to Vladamir Guerrero who reinvented himself in the regular season with Texas, but who phoned in the post season show as he had 6 RBIs, no HRs, and a 1/14 performance in the World Series. Clutch isn't the word for the guy who was once the best bad ball hitter in the game, but there is no home for him either.
Perhaps we're all on the Island of Misfit Toys, looking for a home and a solid job option for the new year.
Like me, I guess they just have to believe.