BOSTON -- The Red Sox tell you they've gotten past the Manny Ramirez thing, and then in the next breath they remind you how good their record is since Manny left.
Red Sox fans tell you they love Jason Bay, but then they remind you that in this town Jason Bay is always going to be linked to Manny Ramirez. The Red Sox can say they don't need Jason to be Manny, but as long as Jason's Sox remain on a collision course with Manny's Dodgers, the two will be compared.
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| Jason Bay homered in his first two playoff games. (Getty Images) |
"I've been a Red Sox fan back to the days when you used to be able to sneak into the ballpark," the cabbie said. "I want them to play the Dodgers. And I want Bay to win it with a walk-off. And I want to see Manny have the chance to win it and strike out."
That's how it is now. Red Sox fans, the same people who once feared the worst every October, now dream confidently of the best way for their heroes to win it. After two titles in the past four years, they expect to win it again.
That's fine, as long as they do win.
So far, this October has been a nightmare for the Steinbrenners, with their hometown Rays, the rival Red Sox and Joe Torre's Dodgers all still playing long after the Yankees had to shut it down. But if you want to turn it into a Sox nightmare, just imagine Manny celebrating with the Dodgers, while the Red Sox head for home second-best (or worse).
Imagine the comparisons if Ramirez stars and Bay doesn't.
It wouldn't be fair to Bay, who didn't choose to be The Guy Who Took Manny's Place. He just happened to be playing for the non-contending Pirates, and he just happened to be the convenient outfielder the Red Sox could get when they decided that Manny had to go.
Bay got off to a good start, and the Red Sox kept winning (or started winning more, as they'll remind you). It didn't matter that Manny was hitting like crazy on the West Coast, because the Red Sox were winning as a team now.
That was the story, but Bay always knew there was another storyline out there, too.
"Maybe after this year," he said, when someone asked if the Manny comparisons would ever go away. "I guess they're always going to be there, and I understand that. As I've said the whole time, I'm not trying to be anybody else. He's probably one of the best players ever, so I guess it's easy to not try to live up to it."
It's easy for Bay, a good player who is as un-Mannylike as they come.
"His ego is on the negative scale," teammate Sean Casey said.
Bay fits into how the Red Sox see themselves, and into how they want to be seen.
"He knows himself," general manager Theo Epstein said. "Bay is a team player. In a lot of ways, we became a team in the last two months, or redefined ourselves as a team."
In this new definition, the Red Sox aren't about the fearsome David Ortiz-Manny Ramirez combination in the middle of the order. In this new definition, as Epstein said, "We rely on a relentless lineup one through nine."
Epstein bristles at the suggestion that the Red Sox learned about Bay after he arrived.
"We obviously research guys we trade future Hall of Famers for," he said.
That's fine, but nobody will ever believe that the deadline trade was about getting Jason Bay. The Red Sox decided they had to deal Ramirez, and thus they had to find a replacement, and Bay was the best replacement they could come up with on short notice.
There's no arguing that it has worked out so far. Bay has played well, the Red Sox as a team have played well and as we reach the middle of October, the Red Sox with Jason Bay are right where the Red Sox with Manny Ramirez usually ended up.
"It's one step," said Bay, who seems to understand that more than most.
One step, and a big one. The Red Sox love Bay, the fans love him and so far no one in New England is ready to welcome Manny back. They're so confident up here that they want to face Manny's Dodgers in the World Series, because they believe it will all work out.
For Jason Bay's sake, you can only hope that it does.
