A Run-of-the-Mill Effort in Crunch Time

Manny Taking His Sweet Time Hits Sour Note

NESN's Tom Caron and Red Sox Legend Jim Rice Have Manny on the Run

Tom Caron: Earlier in the game, and Jerry Remy correctly pointed this out right away, at Tropicana Field for some reason, that place, he goes down there and there’s always trouble. A comebacker to the mound, we’ve seen this before, not giving it anywhere near full speed up the first base line… This is a playoff spot on the line. You’ve got to hustle up the line.

Jim Rice: You got to, it just seemed like he… if you can’t beat it out you still have to go through the motion of at least running down there. You only have to run down there for a couple of seconds, go out and bust your butt and just go down there…

TC: For the very reason of what happened. He bobbled the ball on the pitcher’s mound. He threw it high. You watch. I don’t know if he could have beat it out anyway. He bobbles it. He throws it high and he’s not that far from first base. You’ve got to hustle up the first base line.

JR: True. If you run a little harder, he MAY could have thrown the ball over his head, because he could have panicked, it was so close and all of a sudden, you got a guy who almost threw the ball over first base. Manny could have raised it up a little higher, he could have thrown the ball over his head.

TC: Anything could have happened… This is the last full day of summer.

JR: But what do you say, Manny being Manny? I’m tired of that. When you’re in the playoffs, you gotta to bust your heiny. You’ve gotta go down there and show the guys you want to play because you are a big part of this team. And the team’s gonna follow you right now, you Manny Ramirez, Big Papi. You gotta say ‘hey guys, get on my back, I’m going forward.’ We only got 10 games to go. I gotta be a leader.

TC: If you saw one of your teammates do that in 1978, I know you would have pulled him somewhere to the side of the dugout and had a not-gentlemanly conversation about that…

JR: That’s not like me (laughing).

TC: I know you would have had a couple of words.

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