Papelbon Likens Manny to Cancer

You might think that being a half season removed from the Manny Ramirez drama means the Red Sox would be tired of talking about it, and people would be tired of asking them about it. You would be wrong, because Esquire magazine asked Jonathan Papelbon about Manny. And Papelbon wasn't afraid to throw discuss the matter further.

"It just takes one guy to bring an entire team down, and that's exactly what was happening," Papelbon told Esquire. "Once we saw that, we weren't afraid to get rid of him. It's like cancer. That's what he was. Cancer. He had to go. It (stunk), but that was the only scenario that was going to work. That was it for us."

Harsh, isn't it? Guess there's no way to misinterpret that.

"He was on a different train!" Paplebon said of Ramirez. "And you saw what happened with that. We got rid of him, and we moved on without him. That comes from the manager, and it comes from guys like Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield and David Ortiz. Nobody is ever going to be allowed to do that. Even a guy like me, just heading into my fourth year in the big leagues - if David Ortiz gets a little, you know - I'll tell him what's up! I'm not afraid to do that. I'm not afraid to put him in his place, because I think everybody needs that.
"And if somebody does it to me, I understand that. I most certainly understand that. Varitek tells me all the time, 'Just shut up. Do what you're supposed to do.'"

Too bad with all these guys in the room ready to put guys in their place they couldn't keep Ramirez in check. In all the time he was there, I'm sure Manny's teammates must have tried to "tell him what's up" as according to Papelbon. So it's hard to assume they gave up on him too soon.

I guess what we've learned here is that the Red Sox are happy without Manny, and vice versa. Really, it's nothing we didn't already know before. So we can now move on, right?