Christ, I hate Joe Buck.

And Tim McCarver. Right now, I'm watching their NLCS broadcast. And they won't shut the fuck up about how terrible Manny Ramirez is as a person. How he acted like a dick in Boston. How he shoved that traveling secretary in Houston.

Look, I know that this is the conventional wisdom about Ramirez. But it's a load of crap. He's got the same problem that Carlos Beltran has - he makes everything look too easy. He's like the geeky kid in your calculus class who finishes the test half an hour before everyone else - you hate that he does it so much better than you could hope to. But the fact is that while that kid (and Manny and Beltran) is blessed with great natural gifts, he also works pretty fucking hard.

From everything I've heard about the guy, Manny Ramirez is one of the toughest workers in baseball. He spends hours of extra time in the batting cages. He works on his hitting technique and approach like few others. The man didn't get where his is by just coasting.

Now, I hear all the dipshits amongst you talking about how Ramirez was dogging it in his last month in Boston. That's a load of bullshit. The guy hit .347 with an OBP of .473 in his final month with the Red Sox. Manny was traded because Epstein had it in for him, not because he was throwing games.

And, yeah, he shoved that guy. We all have bad days. That doesn't excuse it, but it does mean that we should forgive it if the victim has forgiven Manny.

And I hear that he's kind of a dick. He doesn't like to sign autographs, and he frequently doesn't show up to charity events and such. Well, that really shouldn't be expected of him. He's a private individual, and he can do whatever the hell he wants with his time. Just because he's an athlete doesn't mean he has to conform to our desires or image of what a sports figure should be. It's great if our sports stars are like Berkman, Biggio or Sampson. But they don't have to be.

So lay off of the guy. He does his job, and that's really all that should be expected of him. He's one of the greatest right handed hitters of all time, so I don't really give a shit if he doesn't hustle on easy ground outs.