WINTER HAVEN, Fla. – As another spring training dawns, his old cleanup hitter is 112 miles away and $160 million richer. But John Hart doesn't like what he's hearing from his prodigal slugger, Manny Ramirez.
Our saga begins a few days ago, when Ramirez pulled into Red Sox camp and suggested that the Indians drove him out of Cleveland, not with dollars but with words.
"When I was there in Cleveland," Ramirez told ESPN, "the GM (Hart) and the owner of the team (Larry Dolan) said, 'Oh, he doesn't want to play. He doesn't want to help the team.' When I saw that in the paper, I made up my mind to go somewhere else."
But meanwhile, back in Winter Haven, when John Hart saw that quote on TV, he made up his own mind – to tell it how he remembers it.
"First of all," the Indians GM said, as he watched his Manny-less team work out at Chain O'Lakes Park, "we know how we treated Manny and how we treat all our players here. This is a desirable place to play.
"Second, Manny knows very clearly how we took care of him – how we signed him, the way we developed him, the way we protected him. We've always been fair to Manny ...
"We never asked anything of Manny. All we did was support him. We helped Manny all along the way, as he matured, as he developed. He was always very protected here."
In the eyes of Hart, in the eyes of many, Ramirez had a lot of maturing to do when he arrived in Cleveland in 1993 at age 21. What the Indians remember was that for eight years, they never asked Manny to talk to the press, rarely asked him to make appearances for the club, mostly asked him to do nothing but show up and swing the bat.
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The agent definitely wanted to get the money. In fact, as soon as I heard Manny signed with Jeff, I sensed we were out, because I said, 'It's going to come down to money,' and we don't have the economic means some clubs do. ” |
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— John Hart, Indians GM |
"Manny shot through our system," Hart said, "because he was a great hitter. Other parts of his game weren't quite as developed. But his bat was so strong, we brought him up and hit him eighth. Hell, we hit him eighth for like three years to protect him."
In time, of course, Ramirez grew out of that No. 8 hole, grew into the most feared right-handed power hitter alive, grew ultimately into the highest-paid outfielder in the game.
But it was back in late May last year that everything began to unravel.
Ramirez popped his hamstring – and was out for six interminable weeks. Not coincidentally, it was over those same six weeks that the Indians' season – and their reign as omnipotent five-time AL Central champs – began to crumble like the Ming Dynasty.
The injuries piled up almost as fast as the losses. And finally, in early July, the frustration of still not having his best hitter erupted inside Hart.
Just before the All-Star break, the GM was quoted by Cleveland Plain Dealer writer Paul Hoynes as saying: "Manny is killing us by not being in there. He's just killing us."
Now, it turns out, it was those words which apparently stuck in Ramirez's gut like undercooked arroz con pollo.
But Hart says that quote wasn't intended as a slam at Ramirez. It was merely an analysis of what had gone wrong.
"What I was saying," Hart said, "is that 'We don't have this guy and we don't have that guy, and we don't have Manny in the lineup, and it's just killing us.' I didn't make it in the context it's been interpreted. I've been in the game way too long. I would never say anything like that. To suggest that is an absolute joke."
There were other, off-the-record quotes last season from unnamed Indians officials, however, which implied that Ramirez's impending free agency may have had something to do with his prolonged rehab.
One of those quotes, again from an anonymous "insider," suggested that either Ramirez's agent, Jeff Moorad, or an unhappy teammate may have been telling him, "If they're not going to give you a contract, why should you play?' "
But if the implication, from whoever uttered those words, was that Ramirez was malingering, Hart said emphatically: "That's untrue."
"It was never even an issue," he said. "We never said, 'Manny's killing us because he's jaking it.' It was more an issue of: 'You take any No. 4 hitter off any club – take Frank Thomas off the White Sox – and see how it kills that club.' It was all in the context of why the club was playing so poorly."
But Ramirez's remarks this spring raise another issue, too: If he made up his mind as far back as June or July that he wanted to leave Cleveland, then why did he let his agent and the Indians negotiate furiously through the night during the winter meetings?
"You never know what different people's agendas were," Hart said. "But here's the way I see it: The agent had no other club that was interested until Boston jumped in it at the 12th hour. I don't think there was a lot of thought on their part that Boston was simply the right place for Manny. I just think there was no one else biting. ...
"We got run up the flag pole because Boston needed to sign somebody. Hey, they got a great player. ... But they got beat out on a couple of other players. So they came in there at the 12th hour, and we got shut out."
Hart would not go so far as to say, however, that his team was merely used by Ramirez to pump up the bidding.
"I don't think we were used," he said. "Only Jeff Moorad would know that. But I don't think so. We were up until 5 in the morning negotiating. And the next day at noon, I called Jeff because he'd said they were going to make a decision by noon. And his words were: 'I think he's coming to Cleveland.'
"So I think Jeff really thought Cleveland was the best place for him. And that's why I don't think we were being used."
Hart admits that when Moorad, who did not return a phone call for this story, locked up Ramirez as a client two years ago, he suspected right then his team was going to be eventually looking for a new cleanup man.
"The agent definitely wanted to get the money," Hart said. "In fact, as soon as I heard Manny signed with Jeff, I sensed we were out, because I said, 'It's going to come down to money,' and we don't have the economic means some clubs do.
"But as we went along, I think Jeff likes our organization, and I think he would have liked to see it work out in Cleveland for Manny. But we weren't the highest bidder. The other team offered about $25 million more (in present-day value), and he went there. It's happened before. It will happen again."
In the end, both teams offered Ramirez $160 million for eight years. But so much of the Indians' offer was deferred that the present-day value of their offer was around $120 million, compared to about $145 million for the Red Sox offer.
"You know what?" Hart said. "At the end of the day, it was probably for the best. It was probably too rich for us. We have ownership to account to. They don't."
So the Indians moved on and signed Juan Gonzalez to hit cleanup for one year, at $8 million (plus $2 million more in deferrals). Now they can only sit back and see how it all turns out.
"I love Manny, and please write that," Hart said. "If a player makes a decision to go with a club that offered $25 million more than we did, that's his right.
"So this whole thing, it doesn't bother me. How often do you hear players go to another club and say something like that? The way I look at it is this organization took care of Manny for a long time. We did a lot of good things for Manny, just as he did for us. No sour grapes. We'll move on."
And so will Ramirez. But one of these days, these two should have a lot to talk about.
Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com.
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