Sports Redux: Dead Sox

"The Red Sox don't deserve a player like me," Manny Ramirez said yesterday. We're not sure; at this point, it seems like a match made in heaven.

Last night was either Manny's last game in a Sox uniform, or it wasn't, and either way it was pretty pathetic. Trailing 3-2 after five, the sixth hit the fan once again, and when the dust settled the Angels had a 9-2 win, a sweep, and some legitimate confidence that they could go all the way this year. Josh Beckett got hammered for the loss, and the only Sox runs came on a Coco Crisp home run. The Sox commited four errors, which screams "We're in this thing till the end!" to their patient fans.

But what's done is done. The buzz this morning is that the Sox are trying to assemble a three-way deal that would send Manny to the Marlins, with the Sox picking up a couple of Pirates. The big arrival would be Jason Bay, a power-hitting left fielder who would allow local headline writers to file their "Bay State" headlines on the way to the bar. For Manny's part, he'd join a Marlins clubhouse that makes a little more money combined than he does. For Pittsburgh's part...well, after 16 straight rebuilding years, we have to assume they're resigned to this. The Red Sox are trying to line up a Miami-bound pterodactyl as we speak.

While the Sox play out this farce involving a future Hall of Famer, the Yankees just went out and got one. Days after Jorge Posada opted for season-ending surgery, the Yanks picked up Ivan Rodriguez from Detroit for Kyle Farnsworth. This is, in layman's terms, the equivalent of trading four cardboard paper-towel tubes for Scarlett Johansson. Sure, cardboard tubes are useful, in that hamsters can gnaw on them for dental maintenance and to provide nesting material (much like Farnsworth) but you'd have to be a hamster to think that Detroit got full value in this trade. Pudge Rodriguez, like Scarlett Johansson, takes care of an immediate need. Scarlett's value as nesting material is a topic Bostonist would be happy to research and debate.

The Revolution cruised to a 1-0 win in their SuperLiga semifinal against Atlante in Foxboro. Then it got ugly, as the visitors decided to take out their frustrations on various Revolution body parts, punching and kicking their way to the airport. Might have something to do with the $1 million that Atlante could have picked up if they'd won the thing (an MLS team would only get $150K). "Every time a Mexican team loses, this happens," said goalie Matt Reis, ensuring that the next international "friendly" on the Revs' schedule probably won't be. The win sets up an All-American final on Tuesday with Rev nemesis Houston.