I spotted a disturbing Murray Chass/NY Times piece in Google News today, after someone told me they had heard a rumor about the Giants trying to trade for Manny. No truth there from what I found, but "Unsigned Bonds Awaits Further Review" floats another unpleasant idea: with both Barry Bonds and J.D. Drew floating in contract limbo for the past few weeks (thank God) and the Giants looking like they're seriously considering the idea of killing Bonds's contract after the amphetamine news of last week reared its ugly head, Chass thinks the Red Sox should go after Bonds if he suddenly finds himself unemployed, giving the Sox to move Manny back to his original position in right field and (presumably) adding another explosive bat to the lineup.As you can probably tell from the title of this post, I think that's a less-than-stellar idea. It comes down to two reasons:
- On a purely technical level, the last time Manny played right field was five years ago, for a grand total of seven games. The last time he did so on a regular basis was in 2000, in Cleveland. Ignoring the difficulties of playing right field in Boston - remember the scary Wily Mo experiments last year? - it requires a lot of running and that's not really the Man-Ram's style. Bad idea right off.
- Then we get to the real heart of the problem: it's Barry Bonds. Sure, he's put up some of the most impressive offensive statistics ever, but guess whose name shows up next to the definition when you look up "clubhouse cancer"? This is a guy who just threw his teammate under the bus as a defense for drug use. Can you imagine what it would be like in Boston, with the home run record chase, Bonds's reputation of hating everyone and everything AND the dreaded Boston sports media all working in the same sphere? The universe would probably fold in on itself.
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