The End.

This is my favorite Manny Ramirez photo (and I wish I knew who had taken it); in his last game for the hometown team, he walks out to take left field for (nearly) the last time in a game the Red Sox will lose, shoulders straight, head up, seemingly unaware that the crowd--which not even a year before had stood in exaltation after he sent the same Angels home--had been turned against him.

My Manny, the one I spent a lot of time defending, was one of the best hitters that I have ever seen. My heart tells me that my Manny was clean (my head replies that I'm naive) because you get caught once: okay, so you messed up your schedule, you get caught twice, though: you're a moron. It's not like you could successfully avoid testing positive for (in his case) four years and then suddenly, repeatedly forget how to beat the test. This is not my Manny.

It's a shame that it's going to end this way; that he'll be remembered for failing drug tests, pushing an old man, refusing to get on a bus, and that pinch hit in New York where he, supposedly, acted like a petulant child and refused to even take the bat off of his shoulder. Yes, he did those things and yes, he didn't swing--although whether he should have swung or not is debatable--but my Manny was better than that. My Manny had joie de vivre and spectacular at bats.

While he was still here, he said that he just wanted to have a beer with his sons and while I'm pretty sure that they're still not old enough, I hope that he finds peace in his family and whatever comes next for him.