An off day and a columnist's mind turns to thoughts of a left fielder in Los Angeles. Shaughnessy isn't the only one, either: a week later and the sports media that covers the Red Sox is still talking about Manny. Not about the validity of the trade, mind you - except to talk up how well Jason Bay's been hitting or find some definitive statistical proof that Big Papi's lineup protection is a myth - but how well Ramirez has been hitting, how happy he seems, how everyone loves his antics, how the Dodgers will start selling hats with fake Manny dreds attached. Look, we get it: it hurts he left, it hurts that (it seems, at least) that he played his team for personal gain, and it hurts he doesn't suck now that he's playing somewhere else, that karma or poetic justice doesn't seem to apply. The use of "breakup" in the title of this post wasn't just a dig at the frenzy that continues to buzz a week later: Manny's departure has all of the hallmarks of a really nasty end to a relationship, right down to the malicious gossip (Manny's quote about the team - and, by extension, RSN - not deserving him, Schilling's response) and the pain seeing your ex at the club the next weekend, flirting with a group of charmed guys and getting free drinks from the bartender.But as anyone who's been through a bad breakup knows, the only cure to the bad breakup hangover is to cut the other person out of your life and move on. That's why I don't get it: why Schilling's getting riled that SOSH isn't interested in painting Manny as a bad guy, why Shaughnessy continues writing columns of invective, blaming a guy he never really liked for going somewhere else. The story's over, guys. Time to move on.
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