A TEAM "FIT TO BE TIED"
Manny stays at Fenway and helps win

July 31, 2005 ... The rumbling in the stands began as soon as he stood up in the Red Sox dugout, a bat in his hand, and was a full-throttled, foot-stomping roar by the time he emerged from the dugout at Fenway Park. Baseball's trading deadline had passed, Manny Ramirez was still in a Red Sox uniform, and a full house on Yawkey Way left no doubt about how it felt about that.

And when Ramirez, pinch hitting with two outs in the eighth inning of a tie game, bounced a ground-ball single over the head of Minnesota pitcher Juan Rincon to deliver Edgar Renteria with the deciding run in a 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins, then thrust his helmet skyward in salute from first base, whatever ill will Ramirez had engendered with his peculiar behavior in the last week seemed long forgotten.

The Mets were the only team to make a serious run at Ramirez, whose cost ($64 million left on a contract that runs through the 2008 season) was too prohibitive for most of the other teams that might otherwise have sought the 33-year-old slugger, especially after he made what has become an annual request to be traded. His most recent trade demand was confirmed by team CEO Larry Lucchino last Thursday morning in the aftermath of Ramirez's controversial refusal to play last Wednesday, one day after Sox pitcher Matt Clement was carted off the field on a stretcher after being struck by a line drive and outfielder Trot Nixon strained an oblique (side) muscle, sidelining him indefinitely.

Ramirez, who had been promised a day off by Francona, elected to take it, despite the fact the Sox would be playing shorthanded. That provoked a clubhouse confrontation with pitcher Curt Schilling the players had to be separated by Ortiz.

Friday night, when the Sox returned home to play the Twins, Ramirez was greeted with a mixture of boos and cheers. That day, the story broke that the Sox were in serious negotiations with the Mets and Devil Rays. Saturday, the situation appeared to reach critical mass when minutes before that night's game, Ramirez was pulled from the starting lineup. According to sources with direct knowledge of the incident, Ramirez had told Francona a half hour before the game he did not want to play, and when he changed his mind 15 minutes later, Francona told him he would be sitting.

Indeed, the Sox, seeking to come out from under Ramirez's contract to gain greater financial flexibility, have tried to move Ramirez in the past, most drastically in 2003, when they placed him on irrevocable waivers, when any team in baseball could have assumed his contract for the $1 waiver price.

It's doubtful, according to the accounts from Sox officials and other major league executives, that a trade was not made simply because Ramirez decided he didn't want to leave after all. But in a bizarre scene before yesterday's game, he and teammate Kevin Millar walked into Francona's session with the media. "I want to introduce you to Manny Ramirez," Millar said. Ramirez waved a hand to reporters. "I'm back," he said.

Ramirez's heroics provided a fitting end to a day that began with more electricity in the park than usually on tap in the first inning of a Sunday afternoon game. Papelbon, the 6-foot-4-inch right-hander drafted just two summers ago, made his major league debut and blew away Shannon Stewart swinging (95 miles per hour) and Luis Rodriguez swinging (93) to begin the game, displaying a fastball with power and cut.

In the second inning, he allowed a single, then hit the next batter, but recorded a pop out followed by two strikeouts, of Lew Ford and Michael Ryan. Ford retreated to the dugout with a smile/ grimace, suggesting he was impressed.

Papelbon would allow two runs a Justin Morneau homer in the fourth and a Jacque Jones homer to begin the sixth while walking five and fanning seven. The returns might have been slightly different and Papelbon was the first to acknowledge this if the wind hadn't been blowing in yesterday. Because, with the bases loaded in the fifth, Minnesota's Terry Tiffee launched a ball to right field that led Papelbon to immediately hang his head.

And, from Delcarmen, Mike Myers, and Mike Timlin. Delcarmen, who inherited two Papelbon runners in the sixth, fanned Nick Punto looking and appeared to be out of the inning when Bill Mueller stabbed a Stewart grounder just inside the third-base bag. But Mueller, attempting to go to second base, made a rare throwing error, plating an unearned run. That gave the Twins a 3-2 lead. Myers entered and escaped the inning with a fielder's choice. He allowed a leadoff double in the seventh before recording two outs on a sacrifice and a bouncer back up the middle. With a man on third, Timlin relieved Myers got Ford to fly out.

The Sox tied it in the seventh on John Olerud's single, Varitek's double, and Kevin Millar's sac fly. Timlin put himself in line for the win by pitching a scoreless, though eventful, eighth. He surrendered a one-out single to Punto, a double to Stewart, recorded an out, then walked Joe Mauer intentionally to load the bases. Timlin then blew a 92 m.p.h. fastball past Tiffee that brought the crowd to its feet. With that the Twins had gone 0 for 11 with runners in scoring position while leaving 14 men on ... Enter Manny