LOS ANGELES — His presence assaults the senses.
Take the escalator from the press box to the main concourse, and a sign greets visitors: “The Dodgers Love Manny Being Manny.” Two flights down at the gift store, Manny Ramirez dreadlocks — with Dodgers embroidered skullcap — go for $25. Hokey? The first shipment sold out.
If the idea that a grown man or woman would wear a wig that looks like Big Brown’s mane seems implausible, here’s something even more unbelievable.
Manny is a leader.
Dodgers manager Joe Torre said as much Tuesday in his afternoon chat with the media. Ramirez has been a lot of things to a lot of people. But leader? What’s next, Beckham getting his Visa rejected at 7-Eleven?
“He’s come in here and been himself, and a lot of guys have jumped on his coattails,” Torre said. “They enjoy him, his personality. I liked the personality this club was developing before he got here, but he’s accelerated it, lightened the mood, so to speak.”
Ramirez hasn’t changed in Los Angeles. He has been reincarnated. It’s hard to think of another player who has been viewed so differently by two different teams in a matter of three weeks. The Red Sox couldn’t call Ramirez a cab fast enough at the end of July. His teammates, they said, were driven to distraction. They couldn’t take the eccentricity anymore — or the lack of effort. Ramirez spent his final days in Boston running the bases like a kid trudging toward a dentist’s chair.
The Red Sox paid his salary to go away.
Ramirez arrived in Los Angeles with his hair down, a smile on and a free-agent contract to earn. He might as well have been in Las Vegas with the way he forged a new identity. He talks hitting with his teammates. He has served as a sounding board for the enigmatic Matt Kemp.
With the Dodgers, Ramirez has been all buzz, no buzz kill.
He’s basically Los Angeles’ Big Papi, Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky who will take out a pitcher’s spleen with the game on the line.
“We always stress how important it is to play, like it’s supposed to hurt when you do it,” Torre said. “Manny has the ability to combine the fun with the focus. I think every club needs that. We did.”
