Manny Ramirez Should Never Be a Yankee

Instead of the back of Manny's jersey saying "Ramirez," it should say "Schact," as in Al Schact, the clown prince of baseball.

For those of you who are not old enough to remember, long before the San Diego Chicken, Al Schact used to be an act for those teams who weren't very good and needed a gimmick to get fans to come to the games. 

Al Schact wore a too-large uniform and used to dance in the first base coach's box and sort of did the splits.  He would turn his hat sideways and make faces to the crowd, all to get attention and laughs.

Schact has now been replaced by Ramirez. Before Brian Cashman or Joe Girardi even consider entering the Ramirez sweepstakes, they should think long and hard about whether they need a clown to fill the seats at the new Yankee Stadium. 

I don't question that Ramirez may have been the greatest right handed hitter of the last 25 years, maybe ever. He has hit in the clutch, and he has been a Yankee killer.

But he has also hidden in the scoreboard at Fenway; has made hand-painted signs to mug to the cameras; has high-fived a fan after a running catch in left field and then jogged to the dugout to review this play on camera and again mug for the cameras. 

He has forgotten which knee was injured when he was directed to get an MRI.  Remember, Mr. Cashman and Mr. Girardi, it turned out that neither knee was injured.

He has also neglected to run out ground balls in crucial situations and forgotten what position he was playing for Boston when he cut off a throw from Johnny Damon, who was standing about 50 feet from him, trying to throw to an infielder.

Manny Ramirez has never understood he was supposed to play "for" the fans and not play "to" the fans.

But there are greater reasons than these, Mr. Cashman and Mr. Girardi, why Manny Ramirez should never don the pinstripes. Those reasons begin and end with the pure fact that it has always meant something special to be a Yankee and a Yankee fan. 

There are not enough pages to recite the testimonies of players on what it has meant to play as a New York Yankee.  Some players, most notably in this writer's mind, Reggie Jackson, just never really got that.

There are reasons the Yankees don't change their team colors every few years.  There are reasons the Yankees don't wear green jerseys to celebrate the anniversary of a championship in another sport.  There are reasons they don't put on camouflage to honor the military.

There are reasons that Yankee Stadium has been called "The Cathedral."  There are many reasons why fans come from near and far to make a pilgrimage to 161st Street and River Avenue. 

There are reasons that players, coaches, and broadcasters from other teams brought their video cameras during the final year of Yankee Stadium to take away memories and maybe a little bag of dirt from the field.

There are reasons that a hush persisted as fans crowded into Monument Park in the old Stadium.  There are reasons that names like Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Martin, Berra, Ford, Munson, O'Neill and Williams bring goose bumps to fans. 

There are reasons that games being played in the Bronx soon after 9-11 helped this country heal. Even still, American flags are brought by fans, displayed while "God Bless America" is sung every night.

There are many, many reasons that midnight blue pinstripes on white and an interlocking N/Y are the best known icons in the sports world.

Some of us can remember what it felt like to sit with our grandfather and listen as Mel Allen painted a picture to us of a summer afternoon when the Yanks were winning again in the Bronx, a place we had only seen in pictures and on a tiny black and white television.

Some of us remember seeing a very old Mickey Mantle, in the twilight of his career, limping around the infield at the Old Yankee Stadium after hitting another home run.

Some of us can remember what the wallpaper looked like in the room we were in when Chris Chambliss put the Yankees in the World Series in 1976 for the first time in 12 years.

Some of us can remember what the high school classroom smelled like where we watched Bucky Dent hit a home run in Fenway Park in a playoff game in 1978.

Some of us can remember the exact place we were on a rural road when we learned in 1979 that our Captain, Thurman Munson, had died that day in Ohio.

Some of us remember the disbelief we felt as a weak ground ball off the bat of an Arizona player named Gonzalez leaked through the infield and ended a dream of No. 27 in 2001.

Some of us can remember what hour it was when Aaron Boone drove one down the left field line in The Stadium to beat the Sox one more time.

Some of us remember the disbelief in '04 when the hated Red Sox beat us four in a row when we were sure we were going back to the Series for the seventh time in nine years.

For us who remember those and many more reveries of the heroes who have played in pinstripes, we know all the reasons it has always been special to be a Yankee fan.  And none of us want to look back five years from now with memories of a clown in dreadlocks who embarrassed the greatest franchise in sports history by his antics.

Please, Mr. Steinbrenner, Mr. Cashman, and Mr. Girardi, don't put this new clown prince in pinstripes.