MONSTER year

With his power on the field and playfulness off it, Manny Ramirez has given the Red Sox a lift of massive proportions

Manny Ramirez would love to know what has happened to his offense. Hardly a day goes by in the Red Sox clubhouse without Ramirez sidling up to someone and reaching out and squeezing the person's bicep. "No pop," he says, shaking Iris head in feigned disappointment. "I got no pop no more." Ramirez tries to furrow his brow. He tries to look sad. He fails miserably.

It's not just the extra-hefty-sized pants Ramirez is fond of wearing--they belong to teammate Rich Garces--that make his act hard to take seriously. The twinkle in his doe eyes is also too fierce, the smile across his face too wide. Then there are his numbers.

Ramirez began the week leading file American League in home runs (23) and ranking second in batting average (.351) and RBIs (72). Those figures put him on pace for a 52 home run, 162 RBI season--MVP numbers, Triple Crown numbers. Coupled with the Red Sox's steady pitching, Ramirez's production has been the driving force behind the team's surprising perch atop the A.L. East.

No one expected the Sox to be this good, just as no one expected Ramirez's adjustment to his new team, after eight years in Cleveland, to be so swill and sure. Since signing with the Red Sox as a free agent in the offseason, he has been winning over baseball-mad Boston with an unflagging work ethic and joie de vivre. Moreover, he hits spurred the team's rise without the help of injured All-Star shortstop Nomar Garciaparra and without the Greta Garbo act he maintained in Cleveland.

"When I first heard he was going to Boston, I wondered if he'd be able to make the adjustment to playing there," says Indians manager Charlie Manuel, "but he's done it. Manny can block everything out and hit. Not too many things bother him. I think that's Manny's biggest strength: He focuses in on his hitting and doesn't let anything affect him."

Ramirez's fast start has dispelled a lot of doubts. In Cleveland he was shy. In Boston he has made a joltingly loud entry.

No pop, Manny? The Red Sox should be so lucky that he starts to find some.

It takes time

From his private box in Fenway Park, Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette watches Ramirez at the plate, in the middle of one of his protracted at-bats.

"I used to hate it when he was with Cleveland, always stepping out like that," says Duquette. "Now, I don't mind at all. Look at him."

Ramirez leisurely strolls out of the batter's box, then takes repeated practice swings, followed by several left-leg lifts and long looks into both dugouts. Before stepping into the box for the first pitch, he usually looks directly overhead. "He could be talking to God; I don't know," muses right fielder Trot Nixon.

"I look up there maybe to relax," Ramirez says. "I always do that. I don't know why. I'm just stepping out and probably saying to myself, `Just be patient. Just relax.' I'm just trying to maybe talk to myself: `Be patient.'"

Patience is a vital component in Ramirez's plate discipline. It results from diligently maintained pregame rituals that almost invariably result in his swinging his 34-inch, 33 1/2-ounce, pine-tardrenched Rawlings 456B bat squarely and swiftly into the ball.

His stroke is so quick, yet powerful, that it appears as though Ramirez merely flicks the ball around the field.

"It's fun to watch him," says Garces, a reliever. "Breaking pitches--he hits them like nothing. Sometimes fastballs are like changeups to him. It's very fun to watch Manny hit, because everything is perfect--the way he swings, the way he looks at the ball."

Ramirez's flicks turn into pokes of the highest magnitude. Already this season, he has established a SkyDome record with a 491-foot blast into the fifth deck. He has wrapped one shot around the Fenway Park left field foul pole and over the parking lot behind the Green Monster. If one of his drives at Tropicana Field had not hit the scaffolding just below the U.S. flag in dead center field, there is no telling when and where the ball would have stopped soaring.

"He just sweet-strokes everything," says outfielder Dante Bichette. "It seems like it's effortless."

There is one aspect of Ramirez's game in which natural grace plays little or no part: defense. He has always had a strong arm but has a reputation for misjudging fly balls. Since switching from DH to left field in early June, once his strained left hamstring healed, Ramirez has not made the kinds of gaffes that occurred in Cleveland, but his awkward first step and poor instincts have remained. Clearly, it is Ramirez's bat, not his glove, that has eased his arrival in Boston.

Living in a cage

On the morning of June 3, the day Ramirez hit his shot into the SkyDome's nether regions, he was taking his customary early walk on the field to the batting cage before the Blue Jays began their batting practice. Toronto manager Buck Martinez saw Ramirez, who had made the same early trip before the three previous games. Martinez felt he had to say something.

"I told him, `You deserve a lot of credit for your approach,'" Martinez says. "He told me, `I have to do it. I have to get my work in.' He is tough. He is disciplined at the plate, and that is no accident."

Red Sox hitting coach Rick Down understands that Ramirez is a special kind of hitter. But he understands also that tapping that natural ability does not come without thought.

"Just the way he works stands out," Down says. "At home, it's not unusual for him to be at the ballpark by 10:30, hitting the weights. Even on the road, he gets his weight work in, is in the cage by 3, doing his tee work, then he starts to think about batting practice. He's very aware of the details and the process of hitting.

"He doesn't take any excess baggage to the plate with him. He has a good ability to block everything out. His thoughts are just to trust his hands."

Nixon has seen Ramirez do his tee work in the batting cage under the center field stands at Fenway. "The guy's unbelievable," he says. "I was watching him one day and, first of all, he hit every ball square--didn't hit the tee, didn't roll it over, didn't mis-hit one. And the balls went to the top corner of the screen, hard, like he was driving the ball to right field. He would stand there, look up in air and then look back down at the ball, and boom!"

On the road, where most video-machine setups are out in the open, unlike at Fenway, Ramirez can be seen with his headphones on, watching videotapes of himself against that night's pitcher, taking notes on pitch sequences.

He says his entire focus each day is on his next at-bat. When that one is over, it is over and it's time to think of the next one. Simple, really.

"I am just trying to relax up there and be patient," Ramirez says. He relishes taking his time. Sometimes, he looks over at his dugout and sees his teammates looking at him, and he all but dares them to hurry him. "I just want them to say, `Come on, let's go,'" he says.

Manny Ramirez can't be hurried any more than he can be stopped.

Picture of contentment

In Cleveland, the space above Ramirez's locker was a shrine to his Indians teammates past and present. Baseball cards and autographed photographs festooned the wall as in a teenager's bedroom. When he got to Boston, the space above his locker stayed barren until a big color shot of him and Carl Everett, taken in spring training, went up. A few days later, a photo of Red Sox old-timer Johnny Pesky appeared next to it. Now, the space is filling up with baseball cards of other Red Sox: Bret Saberhagen, Nixon, Jose Offerman, Bichette, Derek Lowe, John Valentin, infield coach Nelson Norman, Jason Varitek. There are no Indians to be seen, however.

Cleveland, Ramirez's baseball family from the time the organization drafted him out of New York City in 1991, is not in the picture anymore. It was a difficult choice for him to leave the Indians, whom he will play against for the first time when the Red Sox visit Cleveland July 3 to 5. Now that he has, though, his approach to the game has been unchanged by the upheaval in his life, save for his choice of locker garnishments.

"I don't think about Cleveland now," Ramirez says. "It's like I never played there. At first, I did think about them, but (expletive) that. I have to move on. This is my team."

No worries

When Ramirez is not preparing for a game, he is frequently schmoozing with other Spanish-speaking players: Offerman, Garces, relievers Rolando Arrojo and Hipolito Pichardo. When they're not swapping CDs, they're usually swapping tales, and it is usually Ramirez who is laughing the loudest and longest or who seems to be telling the funniest story.

Most sessions end up with Ramirez draped over the shoulders of one of his friends, doubled over in laughter.

"I'm an easy guy to get along with," he says. "I joke around a lot. Maybe I joke around too much. Offie told me the other day, `You are always happy. We never see you down.'

"When everything is going good, the days"--Ramirez snaps his fingers--"go faster. When they're not good, I just try to relax, try to think ahead."

Says Offerman, "Not too many things bother him. He likes to enjoy himself."

While Ramirez's play on the field is his most important contribution, his presence off it is a very close second.

"I'm not saying that guys are going to act differently because they make a lot of money, but honestly you'd never know that guy makes $20 million dollars," says Nixon. "He'd give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. It was hard to get a read on him in spring training, but obviously it's not that easy coming to a new team, not that easy to come in and be all happy and joyous. He's cheerful, always patting you on the back. He's a team player. He wants you to be successful; he's not just worried about himself."

Ramirez accepts all that has happened to him with a shrug of his shoulders and a self-effacing manner. "It doesn't matter" is his favorite phrase. That may reveal little, but at least he says it, says something, to the Boston media--a thing he rarely did in Cleveland.

"I've always been shy, but it's not so hard talking," says Ramirez. "I'm OK. It's no problem."

Goodbye, curse?

It may be impossible to imagine the Red Sox playing deep into October in this or any season without Pedro Martinez, but it is suddenly an even bigger stretch to picture them without Manny Ramirez. With Carl Everett batting just .284 in Garciaparra's usual No. 3 hole, Ramirez has still been able to produce. His task has been made all the more difficult by the Red Sox's lack of a strong No. 5 hitter. Dante Bichette and Troy O'Leary, who have gotten most of the at-bats in that slot, have combined for a .301 average and 46 RBIs, but they aren't the kinds of hitters who will keep opponents from pitching around Ramirez.

Entering the week, Ramirez led the league in intentional walks with 18. In May, A's manager Art Howe intentionally walked him with no one on. In the 10th inning.

Four of the intentional walks came in one game, an 18-inning affair with the Tigers. Ramirez had flied out in one at-bat and homered in another before manager Phil Garner decided to stay away. He relented once in the 12th inning, asking Todd Jones not to give Ramirez anything to hit. Ramirez responded by reaching down and smashing the ball off the Green Monster, just a few feet too low to be a homer.

"Jones pitched him as good as he could, and he still put it off the wall," says Garner. "We weren't going to let him do that again."

Ramirez's four passes tied Roger Maris for an A.L. record. "Forget Maris," Ramirez says. "We just want to win."

And winning is what the Red Sox have been doing. With Garciaparra expected back later this month and Martinez apparently over his usual midseason health scare, the Sox could be loaded for bear like never before in the second half of the season.

"With (Garciaparra, Ramirez and Everett) in the middle of the lineup, that's as good as any three in baseball," says Buck Martinez. "Nomar--phew. You get them together, and you eliminate your ability to pitch around Manny. It's going to be tough."

For opposing pitchers, there will be no easy outs in the middle of the Red Sox order, no place to hide. They will have to take it one at-bat at a time, just like Ramirez.

"We have a good team," says Ramirez. "It's not just me. When I'm not swinging, then (Brian) Daubach, Bichette, O'Leary, (rookie Shea) Hillenbrand, Everett--they pick me up.

"When I'm feeling good, I can help them. The other day, (David Cone) was on the mound and I told him, `I'm going to hit one for you.' And I did."

Ramirez smiles at the recollection. He sure had some pop that day.

RELATED ARTICLE: Manny who?

When Manny Ramirez signed with Boston in December, one would have thought the sky was falling in Cleveland.

There were plenty of good reasons to worry. Ramirez, arguably the best all-around hitter in baseball, drove in 122 runs in 118 games last season. Not only that, the Indians went 20-22 when he missed six weeks with a pulled hamstring. It looked as if the Indians were in big trouble without their RBI machine in the middle of the lineup. Three months into the season, however, the sky is still where it was.

The first step of the Indians' transition occurred in January, when the team signed Juan Gonzalez to hit cleanup and play right field. Although he was coming off a miserable season in Detroit, the Indians were confident Gonzalez, a two-time MVP (1996 and '98), would return to the form he had shown with Texas.

"When we signed Juan we felt we were getting a player with Hall-of-Fame credentials," Indians general manager John Hart says. And that's what they've gotten.

Gonzalez came to Cleveland with a reputation for being a high-maintenance guy who wouldn't play hurt. That hasn't been the case so far. He carried the team early in the season and started 68 of the first 71 games.

"Juan and Manny are a lot alike," Indians manager Charlie Manuel says. "They are both great hitters who can drive in a lot of runs, but Juan is a very good all-around player. He's been very good defensively and on the bases."

Gonzalez isn't the only reason the Indians still have one of the best offenses in baseball. Designated hitter Ellis Burks, signed as a free agent from San Francisco, has hit 20 home runs, three of which came on June 19. Left fielder Marty Cordova, signed to a minor league contract in the offseason, has been a major surprise and has won a spot in the everyday lineup. First baseman Jim Thome has turned his season around after a slow start, and second baseman Roberto Alomar is having another big season.

Many fans felt Ramirez betrayed them by taking the money and leaving the team he had become a star with, but the Indians could be in the same situation after this season. Gonzalez's one-year contract contains a mutual club and player option for 2002. If he keeps up his current production, it's likely he will opt for free agency and would want at least $15 million a year to stay. Still, the team has faced this situation before and likes how it turned out. --Steve Herrick

Ramirez                                                       Gonzalez

 .351                         Average                          .342
   23                           HRs                              18
   72                           RBIs                             65
   49                           Runs                             51
   95                           Hits                             91
   11                     Game-winning RBIs                      10
 .415     Average with men in scoring position and two outs    .370

TSN correspondent Michael Silverman covers the Red Sox for the Boston Herald. TSN correspondent Steve Herrick contributed to this report.

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