01:00 AM EST on Friday, October 31, 2003

Take him.

Please.

That's the message the Red Sox sent the baseball world yesterday, a shot as dramatic as a line drive caroming off the Green Monster.

Take Manny Ramirez.

Please take him.

Take him, and his bloated salary, and free us from this albatross on our payroll, this one-dimensional player who lives in his own world and too often seems to operate like playing Major League Baseball for $20 million a year is not a whole lot different than playing in a Sunday morning softball league.

This has become Manny's image, and it no longer matters if it's the whole truth, part of the truth, or some media overreaction. The perception is that Manny lives in Manny World, some private la la land where if you hit a ground ball back to the pitcher and turn around and head back to the dugout instead of running to first base, hey, what's the big deal? The perception is that Manny is apathetic at best, and has no clue at worst.

Combine that with the fact he's mediocre in the field, does not run well, and is all but guaranteed to have two or three brain-dead moves during the year, and it's easier to understand why Manny has worn out his welcome in Boston.

Would the Red Sox be worse without Manny's bat in the middle of the lineup?

No question.

For all his idiosyncracies, Ramirez is unquestionably one of the most productive hitters in the game, someone who, year in and year out, puts up numbers. Case in point: in yesterday's Journal a story said that, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, Ramirez was the second best player in baseball this past season, trailing only Toronto pitcher Roy Halladay.

So why don't the Red Sox want Manny?

He makes too much money, such a huge nut that it hurts the club's ability to go out in the free-agent market and make the team better. Not to mention the fact Nomar Garciaparra, Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, Jason Varitek, and Trot Nixon all will enter the last year of contracts at the start of next season. How many of these do the Red Sox want to re-sign? How many are they going to be able to afford to re-sign? No one seems to know right now, Red Sox management included.

These are serious questions for the Red Sox, and how they deal with them will determine the future. The problem is Ramirez's contract becames a major logjam, robbing management of flexibility, negatively impacting their ability to be creative. For a franchise that's so committed to ushering in some new era, complete with a new philosophy and commitment, paying Ramirez $20 million a year in the game's new economic reality is a killer.

In a sense, Manny has become Dan Duquette's revenge, the Duke's last gift, too much money to a one-dimensional player, a contract that's now viewed as a dinosaur, one that was given with little regard for the future. To Duquette, trying to get to the World Series to save his job, well aware he was becoming the centerpiece of fan discontent, and having just lost glamour free-agent pitcher Mike Mussina to the Yankees, acquiring Ramirez was seen as vital.

But like a politician who gives sweetheart deals to the unions to get elected, figuring that by the time the rent comes due it's someone else's problem, Duquette paid too much. Now, it's the new owners and general manager Theo Epstein who pay for the Duke's largesse.

The Sox owners also made no secret in the playoffs that they didn't like the fact two of their most visible players -- Manny and Pedro -- do not speak to the media. To an ownership group that's on record as being fan friendly and extremely sensitive to fan reaction, this is a sin. Not as big a sin as leaving a tired Pedro in the game in the eighth inning, of course, but a sin nontheless.

Is this a big deal in itself? Of course not. With Ramirez, though, it's just another in a laundry list of complaints, all adding to the perception he doesn't do enough to justify what he makes.

For, in the end, it comes down to money.

And Manny makes too much of it.

The word yesterday was that the Yankees -- reportedly in puruit of Expos' slugger Vladimir Guerrero -- have no interest in Ramirez. That shouldn't come as a big surprise. The big surprise would be if someone would be interested in him, considering the $105 million that remains on his contract.

So odds are he will be back next year, his feelings hurt, painfully aware his employers believe he's overpaid, not worth the huge checks they pay him.

For one thing is sure: the Red Sox don't want Manny anymore.

Yesterday told us that.