It’s been a while since we’ve had something to cheer about. And I’m not talking about your standard “double-play with runners on first and third with one out” or “stolen base by Matt Kemp” type of cheering. I’m talking about cheering. Chanting. Screaming. Buzzing. Little girls (and I mean little, like three years old) squealing “I see Manny! I see Manny!” when they walk down the aisle to their seats. I’m talking about 2,000 people in the left field pavilion doing the Wayne’s World “We’re not worthy” thing. I’m talking about Manny Ramirez. Forget what he means to the Dodgers, a team starved for both an identity and runs, what adding Manny (even if it is just for a few months) means from a fan’s perspective is so much more. I actually saw a kid walk past me wearing a “Arizona Diamondbacks 2001 World Champions” t-shirt and come back down the stairs after a trip to the gift shop decked out in a faux-Manny Ramirez jersey. Magic bullet marketing, my friends (for highlights of Manny’s day yesterday, see here).
If you had to make a Mount Rushmore of Dodger faces over the last 10 years you’d be hard-pressed to come up with any George Washingtons or Thomas Jeffersons:for the most part we’ve been a bunch of Herbert Hoovers and Calvin Coolidges. Russell Martin has certainly asserted himself as the face of the current franchise, Sean Green and Gary Sheffield both had their moments and even Adrian Beltre put up MVP numbers in his final year in Dodger blue. Anyone who ever had the pleasure of watching Eric Gagne lumber in from left field (you know, back when he was Eric Gagne) in a 3-2 ballgame would make a case for his candidacy on the mountain as well. I think you have to go all the way back to Mike Piazza to find someone who had the impact that Ramirez has had on the fanbase. Four of us trucked down to Chavez yesterday and sweated it out in 90* heat and loved every minute of it—Manny got cheered for catching fly balls, he got cheered for stretching before the game, he got cheered after he struck out and he got lauded like he had cured cancer after his bomb to left field. He is the anti-Andruw Jones, he is slugging over 1.000, he is a beast.
One little game out of first place.
