Memo to Manny Ramirez: Run the Bases and Stop Being Arrogant

“When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.” —Dale Carnegie

On the night that Manny Ramirez swatted career home run No. 500, I was being paid to act as a moving target for a wanton gunwoman in the Grand Hyatt in San Diego. The shooter is a leggy Indian woman who winces in shock every time that she pulls the trigger on the t-shirt cannon that she holds near her hip. She is cut straight from a Tarantino script, and I wait for the house music to start playing a forgotten oldie, but instead we only hear rehearsal commands barking over the director’s "Voice of God" line.

Camera two is being manned by a veteran camera operator named Shawn. He has just returned from five years as a combat Marine, surviving three tours of Iraq relatively unscathed.

It is his first day, in fact his first hour, as a camera person, and he is very tense. His job is to stare down the barrel of his Sony and shoot away at a slender form moving quickly in the dark, launching a cannon directly at him. I walk over to give him a lesson or two, but he is locked in, so I leave him alone until the barrage stops.

Just then, the director starts hollering like a teenage American Idol fan, and starts chattering at the projectionist to put up a cable feed. He is a Red Sox fan and has just found out about Manny’s big feat. Sooner than I would have liked, which would have been in the never category, ManRam’s big head is plastered all over three two-story video screens.

The pitcher deals, and Ramirez effortlessly shoots his offering far, far away, a 430-foot shot. Trademark Manny. We then are forced to watch as he watches his latest ManRamming. What a fool. I am surprised that he isn’t plunked every single time that he goes to the plate. Showoff. Braggart. Run the bases. Run with pride, poise, and dignity. Don’t stare, and watch, and point, and preen, and be Manny, as he always does. IT is disgusting, especially in giant format.

High-definition video is a beautiful thing if the proper image is blown up and ultra-sharpened. Nature has never been more awe-inspiring. I watched a NASCAR race and actually felt my arteries hardening. Skydiving videos are gut wrenching like never before. But like pornography, Manny Ramirez is an image that I never want to see in that kind of detail. It is shocking.
 
The cannon thunders on as the tech rehearsal crescendos to a fever pitch. Manny slowly pokes his way around the bases, and I have to leave. More coffee is the only thing that can erase that awful image from my mind.
 
Corby Anderson writes "Hang Time" for the Aspen Daily News from deep inside an Internet Cloud near the Silicone Valley.