Three great postseason stories

In general, I like Manny alot. But because of the circumstances surrounding his exit from Boston, I'm not sure I would call this a great postseason story. Granted, signs point towards Boras in many ways orchestrating that whole carousel, but Manny certainly isn't blameless. I know Boras' reputation, but Manny is a grown man and could have chosen to play hard and honor his contract regardless of the "advice" he was receiving from Boras. He chose the opposite and punched his own "get out of Boston free" card. Not my idea of a great story.

Anyway, here's a link to a very entertaining story from ESPN's Bill Simmons. He's a big Red Sox fan, but refuses to blame Manny for this situation (and paints Boras as the only villain). It's long, but interesting and at points hilarious.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=manny...otlight&lid=tab2pos1

Very nice article. Boras has certainly earned his reputation. But the best thing in that article was the picture of Manny walking out to left field with the scoreboard as the backdrop. AWESOME!!!

Rather than continue to focus on the negative of Manny in Boston, I will stick to the topic and the positive result that he inspired for the Dodgers. After a long drought 2 guys went in and changed the culture of losing in LA. Joe Torre started it and Manny was the final piece.

The Rays (me being from Florida and all) is an awesome story and it is nice to see some success for the young guys and the small payroll. It really goes to demonstrate that team is more important than individual. I love it. I only hope they can finish the deal and make it to the AL championships.

P.S. I still like to call them the Devil Rays to anger the PCer's. So dumb. It is just a fish.

E -- I said it in another thread, but apropos of your post, I was amused to hear the Rays announcers talk about seeing 'all the fans in their new Rays gear' Well, considering that, to date, the gear seen at Tropicana was pretty much only representative of the visiting team....

And (well, you know me) "PC" (normally associated with us Lefties) had nothing to do with the name change. That was, shall we say, "religious advocates" being unhappy with the word devil associated with a professional team. The club's published reason was pretty much shedding their previous image as they had an exciting, young team. Looks like the mojo worked!

Best article I've read in a long time. Thanks, Emanski's Heroes .

There are sweeping similarities between Bobby Heenan turning Andre the Giant evil near the end of his career and Boras getting to Manny this season. If Manny had started wearing black, one-piece trunks with the strap over his shoulder, it would have been creepy.

quote:

Originally posted by Bighit15:
The Rays (me being from Florida and all) is an awesome story and it is nice to see some success for the young guys and the small payroll. It really goes to demonstrate that team is more important than individual. I love it. I only hope they can finish the deal and make it to the AL championships.

The Rays are have benefitted from years of top draft choices and new management that finally didn't screw it up. The Rays payroll is low due to the age of the players. It will be interesting to see what happens to the Rays as players hit arbitration and free agency for a team averaging 14,000 in attendance with a weak broadcasting contract.

RJM, it won't be interesting. It will be sad. I have seen it here with the Marlins after 2 WS wins. In the words of N'SYNC, "bye, bye, bye". Teams cannot afford to pay players who have success while only drawing 14,000 in a poor stadium that is multi-purpose and antiquated. So they trade players for prospects.

Why do you think the Marlins have such a good player development program? They have to let the Josh Beckett, AJ Burnett, Gray Sheffield, and Pudge type players go and receive draft picks and prospects in return. Couple that with really good scouting department and presto! Good young talented team. I am curious to see the Marlins after they get a new stadium. Will it improve to the point of being able to have the revenue to sign more Hanley Ramirez types.

I don't know if the Rays have a stadium deal in the works and will be interested to see if after this season there is a big push for one.

There is new stadium for the Rays in the works, and it looks like a doozy! It is in the same area as the Trop, so don't expect anymore fans than they get now once the excitement of a new stadium wears off.

I heard on the readio the other day that the Rays had a team best 8 sellouts this year. Are you kidding me? THose sellouts were Red Sox, Yankees and Twins. They can thank visiting fans for those.

If the Rays come out next year and struggle early, they will be right back to 9000 people a night and those stupid cowbells!

Big, your quoting n'Synch lyrics really scared me.....

Big, I am glad you understood my point.

I don't think there is any other player (s) that has/have contributed as much to a team's successful outcome this year than Torre and Manny.
So whether you like Manny or not, it's great post season stuff.