Boston papers give Manny a pass

"If it doesn't happen, so who cares? There's always next year. It's not like it's the end of the world."

Those words were uttered by Manny Ramirez yesterday as the Red Sox worked out at the Jake in advance of Game 5.

The folks over at Tribe Tracker picked up the sound bite and posted it here.

The story was picked up far and wide, but you won't find it - at least not at full intensity - in the Boston papers today, which surprises me more than a little.

In the Boston Herald's main story today, Manny's comments aren't mentioned. Instead, the talk is about an optimistic team that believes it can come back from the 3-1 hole they are in.

The Herald did have a separate piece on Manny's comments, but presented them in an optomistic tone, again painting a picture of a team ready to take on the heavy task it has created for itself.

When you read the article you'll see that the paper makes a seemingly small, but actually significant, change to Manny's quote, toning it down more than a little. The paper removed the words "who cares" and paraphrased them with the much tamer "fine."

"If it doesn’t happen, (fine), we’ll come next year and try to do it again."

Manny is quoted on a few other issues in the article, including showing up pitchers when he hits a homerun (it's no biggie to him), so it's worth clicking on it.

Athough it ran an AP story quoting Manny accurately, The Boston Globe, in its own coverage, makes no mention's of Manny's comments until the final paragraph of its main story - and it too has a different take on what Manny said, substituting the word "good" for "who cares."

" If we go play hard and the thing doesn't come like it's supposed to come, we'll move on. If it doesn't happen, good. We'll come next year and try to do it again."

The Boston media is known for its nastiness, at least on the sports pages. Today they should be wearing cute little skirts and carrying pom-poms.

A little boosterism by the hometown paper is a long-standing practice and probably OK during a playoff run. But burying and altering the quote for the purpose of playing down its impact is clearly a journalism no-no.

A LITTLE HELP FOR A VERY LITTLE TRIBE FAN

In our e-mail bag yesterday we got a nice note from Aaron Fultz's mom.

No. Not THAT Aaron Fultz, but a less-than-one-year-old with the same name as the Tribe lefty.

Since little Aaron is too young to have any memories of this exciting post-season march by the Tribe, Aaron's mom is trying to find a way to help him know down the road that he had a special connection to the Tribe this year. Here's her e-mail.

Hi,

After the birth of my beautiful baby boy on 12-24-2006 and the awesome help of my family picking out his name: Aaron Fultz, I have been inquisitive about that left-handed relief pitcher for the Cleveland Indians. I have only once been smitten by baseball and that was in 1992, when I was 12 years old. I just started watching the games again, this year, and to my surprise, wow those Indians are an amazing team. I think it would be awesome to send the team a Good Luck card, and hopefully they (one day) might send my son, a World Series autograph baseball, t-shirt or any other cool novelty. Do you have any idea of what their fan club address is? I am redoing Aaron Bradlee's room (he will be 1, this year) with the Cleveland Indians photos and autograph baseballs I've got off of Ebay, also I am making some awesome curtains. I'll have to send you a picture after it's done. I hope my baby boy grows up to go pro! I'm really going to try to get him into baseball. And on the pitcher's mound: the NEXT Aaron Fultz!

If anyone knows of a Tribe fan club that might help Aaron's mom on her quest, or has any other suggestions for her, please e-mail me at tribefan120156@hotmail.com and I'll pass along your suggestions.