I was going through some of the quotes from today’s Hot Stove, Cool Music roundtable discussion and this one caught my eye from Boston Red Sox skipper Terry Francona. Of course it’s probably because it’s about Manny Ramirez.
“In ’04, when we were playing St. Louis in the World Series, Manny was hitting and he seemed to be jawing back and forth with the catcher [Yadier Molina],” Francona said. “There hadn’t even been a pitch thrown. You could kind of see, there was a possible altercation starting. Chuck Meriweather was the umpire and he kind of looked at me so I kind of ran out as fast I can, which isn’t very fast.
“But the last thing I wanted was for Manny to get thrown out of the game. I looked at Manny and I looked at the catcher and they’re going back and forth in Spanish. Manny looks at me and says, ‘Papi, they say I’m stealing their signs.’ I look at the umpire and I said, ‘Chuck, Manny doesn’t even know our signs.”‘
Does anyone really think Manny ever knew what the signs were with the Red Sox?
