Sports Redux: Just Manny Bein' Legendary

It's lonely at the top, they say. But there are now 24 men in the 500-home run club, and it probably feels a lot less lonely now that Manny Ramirez has joined that prestigious bunch. Manny took former teammate Chad Bradford deep in the seventh, stood and watched, then took his victory lap and got one of those bounce huddles usually reserved for walkoffs.

Manny is the third guy to hit #500 in a Red Sox uniform (Jimmie Foxx, Teddy Ballgame) and the second from the Dominican Republic (Sammy Sosa). All the other 23 guys in the club are either in the Hall of Fame, headed for it, or under a lifelong cloud of steroid suspicions. Manny's in the second group, so get ready for a lively speech in Cooperstown in 10 years or so. He admitted he'd been pressing a little bit, and said, "Now I can be myself and have fun." Good. This all-business-all-the-time version of Manny was getting hard to take.

With the Sox playing at Fenway South, chances were slim that an Oriole fan would spoil the moment by catching the ball, and fate didn't disappoint. Damon Woo, a Nahant native now living in New York ("It's a good time to be a Sox fan in Manhattan", he said after the game), came up with the ball, and warmed hearts everywhere when he said he wasn't going to sell the ball or shoot it into space, but give it to Manny ("It's his accomplishment. It's his ball.") Hey, Barry Bonds, see what happens when the public likes and respects you?

Somewhere in all this, there was a baseball game, which the Sox won 6-3. Pedroia and Ortiz also hit home runs (#11 and #278, respectively), Jacoby Ellsbury stole three bases (that's six now in two games at Baltimore), and David Aardsma picked up his second Sox win. Bartolo Colon goes against Brian Burres this afternoon; Ortiz, who jammed his hand on a foul ball late last night, is day-to-day.

The Red Wings took a 3-1 lead over Pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup finals. So Detroit at least has that. We're still pinching ourselves about Friday night's basketball game, so we're not prepared to talk about the upcoming Finals at length quite yet. But, soon, friends. Soon.

Photo by Aero Racer E, from pictures tagged "Bostonist" on Flickr.