A strange new sight appeared at Dodger Stadium shortly after the Dodgers pulled off the deal of the century and added Manny Ramirez to the roster.
It wasn't the dreadlocks, though Walter O'Malley couldn't have imagined such a fashion statement when he built the marvelous edifice in Chavez Ravine nearly a half century ago. Then again, Joe Torre had trouble dealing with them until Ramirez started clouting home runs by the handful for his new team.
No, this was different. This was unexpected.
Dodgers fans were actually acting as if they really cared.
Instead of arriving midway through the third inning, they were in their seats by the bottom of the first. Instead of leaving after the seventh, they stuck around all the way through the ninth.
Fake dreadlocks were everywhere in the stands. No. 99 jerseys sold out in stadium stores.
All in celebration of a player who isn't costing their team a dime.
The Dodgers were probably due a bargain after foolishly throwing away millions on players who aren't even on their postseason roster. But even they couldn't have dreamed of the impact Ramirez has had on a team that was going nowhere fast when the Dodgers picked up the disgruntled slugger from the Boston Red Sox on July 31.
There's more fans in the stands, and more music in the clubhouse. On the field, he has carried the Dodgers deep into a postseason for the first time since Kirk Gibson launched his historic home run 20 years ago.
Without him, Dodger Stadium would be empty Sunday. With him, it will be rocking as the Dodgers try to come back against the Philadelphia Phillies.
He has electrified a franchise, turned on a city. In a town filled with stars, he has become the biggest star around.
But the bargain runs out when the season runs out. There will be a price to pay to allow Manny to keep being Manny in L.A. - and it will be a huge one.
Soon the Dodgers will have a decision to make, and it may not be as easy as it looks. Because for all Ramirez has done for them, it's still not certain that the two-month honeymoon will turn into a long marriage.
Do they mortgage the franchise on Ramirez and hope the 36-year-old outfielder ages gracefully over, say, a five-year contract? Do they take the chance that he will continue to be a leader in the clubhouse when his last team couldn't wait to get him out of theirs?
More importantly, was Ramirez just kidding the other night in Philadelphia when he asked reporters if they thought he could get a six-year deal?
Right about now, the Dodgers could give Ramirez 10 years and Dodgers fans wouldn't complain. Besides, they're used to bad deals, like the one their team made in signing Andruw Jones to a huge contract when it turned out he couldn't hit anymore.
And signing Ramirez could be a bad deal, especially at the price tag he and agent Scott Boras will command after the stretch run he had in Dodger blue. Throwing away $36 million on Jones is one thing, but committing $100 million or more to a player who had issues on his last team is another.
Memories can tend to be short, but wasn't it just a few months ago that Ramirez put a beat down on a Red Sox employee nearly twice his age because he couldn't come up with enough free tickets for his friends to come to a game in Houston? Wasn't it just recently that Ramirez disappeared behind the Green Monster to make a phone call, and not that long ago when he stopped running to first base on grounders to the infield?
Wasn't this the same player who teammate Curt Schilling said showed a ``level of disrespect to teammates and people (that) was unfathomable.''
``He was very kind, and well-mannered, but there were spurts and times when you didn't know who he was,'' Schilling said recently. ``You know, he was always kind and nice for the most part, but he'd show up the next day and say, 'I'm through with this team, I want out now.'''
Marriages do grow stale, of course, and there's no doubt the divorce has been good for both the Red Sox and Ramirez. But Dodgers owner Frank McCourt will have to wonder as he reaches for his checkbook how much of the old Manny the new Manny still has left in him.
McCourt will have to reach deep, too. Economic meltdown or not, Ramirez will likely demand a contract of Alex Rodriguez proportions, say $25 million a year for five years and if the Dodgers don't pay it, some other team will.
That's a huge investment for a player who comes with some baggage and would be 41 in the final year of the contract. But the Dodgers are a big market team with a big payroll, so it's not really a question of whether they can afford to sign Ramirez.
The only real question is whether they can afford not to.
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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlbergap.org
