From the AP:
Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon compared former teammate Manny Ramirez to cancer, saying Boston made the right decision when it traded the slugging left fielder to the Los Angeles Dodgers last summer.
"He was on a different train! And you saw what happened with that. We got rid of him, and we moved on without him," Papelbon was quoted in the April issue of Esquire. The story was posted on the magazine's Web site Thursday.
"So Manny was tough for us," Papelbon added. "You have somebody like him, you know at any point in the ballgame, he can dictate the outcome of the game. And for him not to be on the same page as the rest of the team was a killer, man! It just takes one guy to bring an entire team down, and that's exactly what was happening."
"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 sucked, but that was the only scenario that was going to work. That was it for us. And after, you could feel it in the air in the clubhouse. We got Jason Bay - Johnny Ballgame, plays the game right, plays through broken knees, runs out every ground ball - and it was like a breath of fresh air, man! Awesome! No question."
Manager Terry Francona didn't condone Papelbon's remarks, noting the closer usually says what's on his mind.
"That's Pap's personality," Francona said today in Jupiter, Fla., before the Red Sox played the Cardinals. "The one thing we don't ever want is somebody criticizing their own teammates. They know that."
Yep, that's just Papelbon for ya. And as we all know, Papelbon is a douche nozzle.
I'm not really a fan of Manny, or his antics, but there's no reason for a former teammate to publicly bash the guy. After all, if it wasn't for Manny, Papelbon wouldn't have his World Series ring.
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