Manny a New Day

Dear Los Angeles Dodgers,

So you guys have Manny Ramirez now. I wish you and him well and I'll miss very much having him on the Red Sox. I've followed Manny for seven and a half years, so I wanted to offer some tips on dealing with him:


• Manny will be delighted to learn that celebrities often attend Dodgers games. But he will be deeply saddened to learn that SpongeBob Squarepants isn’t one of them.

• Every July, Manny gets cranky and says he wants to be traded. While it was apparently true this year, most years it wasn’t. Just weather the storm – today he says he wants to be traded, tomorrow he’ll say he wants to be … say … a helicopter.

• When he sees the THINK BLUE sign in the hills, he will probably be very confused and ask “Aren’t those supposed to spell ‘Hollywood’?”

• Don’t tell him how close he is to Disneyland. He’ll want to see if he can zip down for a ride on Space Mountain during the seventh inning stretch.

• Apparently Manny wanted to wear number 34 and was saddened to learn he couldn’t because it was Fernando Valenzuela’s number. I’m sure he’s very confused about how an entire South American country was ever a pitcher for the Dodgers.

• Now that he’s been given the number 99, make sure his jersey never gets hung upside down in his locker or he’ll complain that you changed his number to 66 without telling him.

• He’s going to be really, REALLY excited when he learns who his new governor is.

• Don’t make him lose the dreads. He’s like Samson.

• If he assumes Vin Scully’s broadcasting partner is an FBI agent named Mulder … just go with it.

• Above all, take good care of him, feed him a steady diet of Frosted Flakes and inside fastballs. He may have left Boston with something less than grace, but we’ll always love the big lug.

Thanks,

Noah