Hanley Ramirez 2010: Starting All-Star SS

[Bobbob1313]

I like how he just walked away when he was done talking.

[Beef]

His post game comments were super awkward. He wanted no part of it. I liked when he said thanks and walked off because he wanted to escape

[Bobbob1313]

Beef and I like the same things.

[Ramp]

The phone calls have already started rolling in down in South Florida. They go kind of like this:

"If you're thinking about trading your shortstop, we'd be happy to help you out with that."

Yeah, the vultures know when to hover, all right. All it takes is one messy moment in one baseball game, one video clip of a manager chewing out his star player, one sound bite of that star player dissing the manager back, and every general manager in North America is dialing the old cell phone.

Well, it's a waste of time. The teams that made those calls all know that now. The Florida Marlins aren't trading Hanley Ramirez. Not today. Not in July. Not in December. Not in any day, week or month between now and when their new ballpark opens in April 2012.

They might not be really ecstatic with their best player, but they're not crazy. You don't find guys like Hanley Ramirez leaning against every palm tree in South Beach. So cancel the moving vans. Stop dialing the phone. Not happening.

But here's what is happening:

This is now, officially, a defining moment in the career of one of the most talented players most of us have ever laid our eyeballs on.

He can either be scarred forever by this ugliness -- stamped for the rest of his career as a guy who doesn't hustle, doesn't care, doesn't get it -- or he can use it for fuel.

He can still help himself. He can still fix this. Ramirez can still be everything his team -- and his sport -- needs him to be. But to do that, here's the lesson he needs to learn: He can't walk around thinking he's one of the two or three best players in baseball until he understands something important.

Every game matters. Every inning matters. Every at-bat matters. Every ground ball, every throw to first, every play that comes his way -- they all matter.

But if you watch Ramirez play enough, it becomes clear that he never got that memo. And that is what got him in all this trouble this week. Not one play. Not one benching. Not one unfortunate moment in time. It's the culmination of too many plays, too many moments that got him into this mess.

"It's a shame, but Hanley frustrates the guys on that team," one of his ex-teammates told Rumblings, "because everyone knows how much talent he has. Everyone has seen how great he can be out there. But then they also see the times where he just kind of gets nonchalant. It seems like he can turn the switch on any time he wants to. But he doesn't always turn it on.

"I'll give you an example," the ex-teammate went on. "We'd get on him all the time when we'd go play in New York. When he gets matched up to play against Jose Reyes, that dude gets focused. Everyone's always comparing him to that guy, so he's on a mission to show he's the better shortstop. It's almost like you have to challenge him all the time to get him to play like he can."

On some levels, of course, it's almost absurd to suggest that Ramirez has underachieved in any way. He just won a batting title. He has started two straight All-Star Games. He ranks No. 1 among all shortstops in the sport in homers, slugging, runs scored and OPS since the day the Marlins first wrote him into the lineup in 2006. He's 26 years old.

So if that's what he has done while flicking the on-off switch, what would he do if he ever shifted into Derek Jeter mode? Win the Triple Crown about eight straight years?

"He'll wow you out on that field, man," said his former teammate. "He'll make plays. He'll swing the bat. He'll do stuff where you're like, 'Whoa.' But then he'll turn around and do some stuff out there where you scratch your head and go, 'What?' He just has these mental lapses where he just shuts it down."

Until now, though, the rest of the planet never noticed most of those lapses. That's because they're more subtle than the sight of a guy jogging after a ball that's hip-hopping toward the left-field corner.

They're routine throws that get airmailed. They're double plays that don't get turned. They're get-yourself-out at-bats in blowout games. They're not lead-highlight-on-"SportsCenter" kind of material.

But players notice. The manager notices. The coaching staff notices. And it's that stuff that builds up slowly, quietly, over time -- until something bigger comes along, the way it did this week. And then the bomb goes off.

The trouble with this eruption, though, is that it affects more than just the guy who forgot to hustle. And it affects more than the manager who made it an issue. This is now a crisis that has locked the entire team in its full-nelson-esque grip. And it won't instantly disappear just because the manager is now back to writing Ramirez's name on the lineup card.

It's an eruption that has exposed rifts between the face of the franchise and the rest of his clubhouse. It's an eruption that has exposed the tense relationship between the face of the franchise and the manager. So it's an eruption that raises major questions about where the Marlins go from here -- in 2010 and beyond.

What does it mean for Fredi Gonzalez, for instance? He's been lauded and applauded everywhere for the stand he took. And rightly so. Bobby Cox once took an almost identical stand with Andruw Jones. Ditto Charlie Manuel with Jimmy Rollins. So truth, justice and precedent were on Gonzalez's side.

Except that there's a difference. Jones and Rollins didn't pout or whine or lash back after their benchings. They got the message. They pointed the finger at themselves. And they never gave any indication that they had lost respect for the man who yanked them out of the lineup.

But that isn't how Hanley Ramirez reacted. Was it? He made it clear he wasn't exactly running for president of the Bring Back Fredi in 2011 campaign committee. And even though Ramirez has now relented, apologized and extricated himself from the manager's blacklist, it makes you wonder how repairable their relationship can ever be.

Whether Gonzalez likes it or not, his shortstop clearly needs more stroking than the manager has been comfortable with providing. And the shortstop obviously isn't going anywhere, so that still seems like trouble, in the long haul, for a manager who hasn't been able to connect with the best player on his roster.

Meanwhile, we've heard tales about confrontations between Ramirez and his teammates for years. Some have gone public. Some haven't. But they've all been about essentially the same issue -- approaching the game with a way too cavalier attitude for a player of this stature.

"The funny thing is, Hanley's really a good kid," the ex-teammate said. "When he's playing, he's always smiling and happy. But when something goes bad, then he thinks everyone's against him. And we're not against him. We just want him to play to his potential. I really don't think he knows how good he could be."

At least until now, all those blow-ups were small issues, potholes all involved could navigate around. Not this one. This explosion left a crater they'll all be digging themselves out of for a long time -- especially the superstar who lit the fuse.

"You know the sad part of this?" said another baseball man who has some history with Ramirez. "I think, from now on, you'll never hear Hanley mentioned in the same breath as Jeter, or [Chase] Utley, or [Albert] Pujols, because of this incident. That scar will always be there. It's kind of like Robbie Alomar. He was always talked about as one of those guys until one incident. And then he was never looked at that way again.

"And if that winds up happening with this kid, that would be a shame … because let me tell you. Hanley Ramirez is not Manny Ramirez. He's not a bad kid. He's a good kid. He's just young. And he's still a little immature."

It's not a crime to be immature at age 26, by the way. If it were, 75 percent of the 26-year-olds on earth would be serving time in Leavenworth. But you can use immaturity as an excuse only for so long. And for Hanley Ramirez, that time is now up.

This week needs to be his wake-up call. He needs to take the reaction of everyone around him for what it really is -- a plea to grow up, to play right, to act right and to accept the responsibility that goes along with being anointed one of the greatest players alive.

If he wants to erase the stain of an embarrassing video clip that won't die, only he can make that happen. So he has to start making the world forget -- beginning right now.

"He can do that," his former teammate said. "I hope he does. And I hope he learns he impacts a lot more people than he thinks. He's a big part of that club and that organization, and I think he needs to realize that. If he's going to be the guy that organization builds around, then it's time to man up and be The Man out there."

We hope he does, too, because there aren't many more fun players to watch in any area code than Hanley Ramirez. But we also hope he realizes there will be more eyes following him now than at any time in his life.

So this is his chance -- to remind all those watchers just how spectacular a player he can be, not how slowly he can jog after a baseball hip-hopping toward the left-field corner. For every play. In every game. For the rest of his career.

Jayson Stark

[Bobbob1313]

Good writeup.

[Party]

I bet that was Luis Gonzalez.

[wanks1212]

They were pretty awesome quotes, so they probably came from a pretty awesome dude. Meaning they probably came from Hammer.

[Party]

Hammer is not old enough to call him "a great kid."

[Ramp]

Hammer is 31 (mindfuck I know)

[emkayseven]

i'm surprised we didn't keep him in the minors until he was 31

[nny]

Well whoever said it sounds articulate, and I never got that impression from hammer interviews.

Imma go with Treanor

[emkayseven]

hi nny

[nny]

Hi

Do you want something?

[HUGG]

Well whoever said it sounds articulate, and I never got that impression from hammer interviews.

Imma go with Treanor

Only time anyone in the media talks to Matt Treanor is when his wife is doing something relevant.

/saunters off again

[MiamiHomer]

Mr. Hugglesworth!