Now Playing in Theaters
'I Was Born a Free Agent Under Unusual Circumstances'
And so begins "The Curious Case of Manny Ramirez," adapted from the 2008 strategy by F. Scott Boras about a Manny whose price started out at $100 million and spirals backwards: A Manny, like any of us, who is unable to stop the telling of the truth. We follow his story set in Boston from the end of the road trip where he wouldn't get on the bus, following his watching the strikes thrown by Rivera, to sitting out a costly game against the Yankees, a journey that is as distasteful as any man’s move can be. Directed by Tom Werner and starring Terrance Howard and Jessica Alba with Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas and Julia Ormond, "Manny Ramirez," is a grand tale of a not so ordinary free agent and the people and places he destroyed along the way, the loves he lost, the joys of eating sushi anonymously on a public restaurant couch, and the sadness of the realization of what he has to settle for now, and what he did to Boston lasts beyond time.
Buster Olney calls it...: "Thanks to his [Manny] ugly finish in Boston, he has placed himself in a less-than-ideal situation. He generated a historic performance in his last two months of the regular season and followed that up by hitting .520 in the postseason. But he's telling friends that he's concerned about the lack of big-money interest. It is evident that during a winter when many teams have clamped down and watched their dollars more carefully, executives with many teams have decided they cannot trust Ramirez on a multiyear deal."
This Just In... Boras, Manny Go Crawling Back to the Dodgers
(Word Has It The Only 'Serious' Offer Came from the Brockton Rox)
Buster Olney, ESPN, 12.31.08: "The prices for corner outfielders have plummeted, and Ramirez seems to have no other suitors who could talk dollars anywhere near the level of what the Dodgers can offer. This winter, a $10 million salary is a very good offer for a corner outfielder, and although the Dodgers initially offered a two-year, $45 million deal to Ramirez back in November, a reduction in their proposal would fall in line with everything that's going on in the current market. Giving Ramirez a three-year deal would be like overpaying by 50 percent in the shriveled real estate market."
Those Were the Days When the Price of Gas Was High...
Scott Boras, Nov. 12, 2008: "On behalf of Manny Ramirez, we will, for the first time, begin accepting serious financial offers on Friday."
