Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon does not mince words when discussing last year’s Manny Ramirez fiasco in the April issue of Esquire (via MLB.com). “It just takes one guy to bring an entire team down, and that’s exactly what was happening,” the Riverdancing righty jabs. “Once we saw that, we weren’t afraid to get rid of him. … He had to go. It (stunk), but that was the only scenario that was going to work. That was it for us.”
Papelbon continues, “[Manny] was on a different train! And you saw what happened with that. We got rid of him, and we moved on without him.”
Manny has always been on the same train – The Manny Express. That train brought the Red Sox to two World Series, then Manny steered it down a different set of tracks toward a big pile of money. Unfortunately for Boston, those tracks led ultimately to Los Angeles. And when Manny got there he realized the pile of money wasn’t quite as big as he thought…but it was still pretty big. And of course there’s still a very real possibility the Manny Express will end up derailing, taking the whole Dodgers team with it. But that’s the chance you take when you buy your ticket. All aboard!
Tags: boston red sox, jonathan papelbon, los angeles dodgers, manny ramirez
