One day you're up, the next you're down

I'm a little late with this one, but it's been on my mind for awhile, and since both Jim Rice and Manny Ramirez have been in the news recently, I figured this was as good a time as any to spit out my thoughts.

Boston is a city I can't figure out. Don't get me wrong. I like the area, I like the team. I'll root for the Red Sox every single time they play the Yankees until my dying day. I've been to both cities, and, man, I can handle Boston so much better. But some of the bizarreness that comes out of that city with regard to the Red Sox confuses the stuff out of me.

Perhaps you remember a bit of a flap that erupted from an interview with Jim Rice a little more than a year ago. It was in June of 2008 and the interview was actually a question-and-answer session during a public speaking appearance by Rice. I am especially aware of it because the appearance was in my town. And the person who attended the event and wrote the story that sparked the flap worked for me. The story that caused the national sensation of the day appeared in my paper. I edited the story and wrote the headline.

Rice was asked about Manny Ramirez, who was as big a deal then as he is now. And Rice wasn't too complimentary, saying he wouldn't take his kid to see "Manny being Manny," and basically calling Ramirez a one-dimensional player, someone who could hit but not field.

Well that certainly drew New England's attention. The story that appeared on our Web site was linked by every national site imaginable. I don't know how many hits we got, but it was tremendous. And then the commentaries appeared on the blogs and elsewhere. They called Rice an idiot. They said he was bitter, that he was living in the past, that he was selfish, delusional, a jackass. My favorite commentaries were the people who ripped my reporter's writing as fawning. I confess, the reporter (he's moved onto another job) was a Red Sox fan, and it's easy to cherry-pick sentences from a story to get the slant you want. But none of the commentators who blasted the article's tone were in the office after the reporter got back from the event (nor were they at the event). The reporter didn't come away impressed with Rice. So there goes that theory.

It seemed all of Boston was coming down on Rice: "How dare you rip our great player? How many World Series did you win, old man?"

Well, you know what's coming next. Ramirez shoves a team employee. He is accused of loafing to first base, and he is traded to the Dodgers less than two months after Rice's interview. Then I started to hear it from Red Sox fans: "OK, now you're going to find out what we've been dealing with all this time."

Wait a minute. Weren't you just hounding Rice for criticizing Manny for the same things that you're criticizing him for now? Am I on the same planet I was on two months ago? So Rice isn't allowed to say those things but you are? Wha?

So, Manny has a great second-half for the Dodgers and helps lead them into the playoffs. Los Angeles finally wins a playoff series and a bunch of people in L.A. start wearing dreadlocks and acting goofier than they usually do.

Then this season starts and Ramirez opens well, but he's busted for a banned drug on the MLB list. And Red Sox fans sneered. "Looks like your boy isn't going to be playing for awhile." My boy. That's what I had to hear. Lucky me.

Well, the Dodgers did just fine without Ramirez. And they're doing just fine with him back again. (And Jason Schmidt -- yes, Jason Schmidt -- pitched a one-hitter for six innings last night. Deal with that!).

Then, a couple of days ago, we hear that Ramirez and David Ortiz were on the once confidential list of players who tested positive for banned drugs in 2003. So, according to this list, Ramirez tested positive as a member of the Red Sox. I was tempted to reverse gloat, find those Red Sox fans who sneered at me back in May and sneer back. But I didn't. I didn't even call up my brother, a huge Red Sox fan. Because even though it looks bad, I really have no idea whether two sluggers taking banned drugs helped the Red Sox win two World Series. And nobody else does either. No matter what they say.

So, you know what else happened this week? The Red Sox retired Jim Rice's number. Since that interview 14 months ago in which Rice was vilified, he has been voted and inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. And then the ceremony Tuesday to retire No. 14. You'll be able to see the number whenever you go to Fenway Park. (Fenway is still a fantastic park -- don't let any Yankee fan pollute your thoughts about it. It is fabulous place to watch a game).

And there was applause and tears for the guy who not that long ago was a bitter, selfish, delusional jackass living in the past. Now, in Boston, Rice is the good guy and Ramirez is the villain.

If you ask me, they're both the same guys they were 14 months ago. I could never figure out why people got all uppity about what Rice said. He was asked his opinion, he didn't say anything that other people hadn't said before, but he paid for it.

Maybe it's just our need to express an opinion on everything. Everyone always has to take a side, whether there are sides or not. Create a feud. Maybe it's not a Boston thing. Maybe it's a media thing (and by media I'm including the blogs, too).