Manny Mania Wednesday

Here we go again. I'm just "Lenny being Lenny."

---Greetings from Chicago. The great Midwest. When it's 330PM in New York and 1230PM in Los Angeles, it's 1953 in the middle of the country.

---Actually, I would never degrade Chicago, which has tons of energy and is more fun than humans should be allowed.

---Unlike other snobs on the East Coast who continually take shots at the West Coast. The latest volleys were fired in some of the news reports about Manny Ramirez winging west to be part of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

---"Manny in Tinseltown."

---"Manny in LA LA Land."

---One glorified ass swipe, otherwise known as "alleged" sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe, wrote that Manny will be checking out of games in the 7th inning just like the rest of the Dodgers fan.

---Yo, Shaughnessy (who has a haircut that is better suited for a Blarney Stone bartender in 1979), come out to the loge in Dodger Stadium any day and I will show you a lot of fans there at the end of the game.

---As if Boston fans are any better. You know that the LA chapter of the Boston Red Sox Booster Club has been banned now from ever attending games down in Anaheim. Lots of drunken brawls started by these transplanted neanderthals.

---If it's so much better on the East Coast, why the hell are you living here???

---The same goes for ex-New Yorkers who move to LA and then BMW (bitch, moan, whine) all day about how much better it is in the Big Apple.

---"You can't get good pizza." Blah, blah, blah.

---Well, if you can't find good food, how come your ass is as big as a Hummer?

---The same goes for the griping about the theater scene in LA.

---Uh-huh. And the last time I looked, Mario Lopez was on Broadway.

---If you don't like it, go back to your humidity, your blizzards, and your subways with unwashed people.

---I am proud to have homes in both cities.

---Manny Ramirez electrified the Dodger games last weekend. The Dodgers manufactured Manny T-shirts and uniform tops in less than 24 hours.

---The lettering was probably still wet when they were put up for sale. Probably started to run like that old title card on WPIX' Chiller Theater.

---One pinhead did their own shirt. Putting "Ramirez" on the back of his jersey with blue duct tape.

---And it looked like....a jersey with blue duct tape.

---Leaving Dodger Stadium on Sunday, I saw one peddler selling Obama T-shirts and I wondered who didn't give him the memo.

---After their first base coach got thrown out on Friday, the Dodgers used Don Mattingly as a fill-in on the field. When Manny was standing at first after a single, I looked at those two standing together and considered the twilight zone I had just entered.

---With Manny here, Andruw Jones now becomes baseball's most expensive defensive replacement. That comes to about $1.5 million per put out.

---I watched the last ever Oldtimers Day festivities at Yankee Stadium. Nobody honors old and dead baseball players better than the Yankees.

---They introduced Billy Martin's widow and just how young is she?? I can swear I saw her in the trailer for "High School Musical 3."

---Methinks that if, had Martin lived through the auto accident, drunk driving would not have been the only charge he would be slapped with.

---Willie Randolph got invited back for a wonderful ovation---a delicious FU to the Mets. Indeed, as they trotted out 72 old Yankees, I also started to count how many of them had been unceremoniously dumped by Steinbrenner over the years..
---I got to fifteen and stopped counting.

---I'm also amused by the constant references to Yankee Stadium as this great "baseball cathedral." If it's so bitchin', why are they closing it down?

---Cathedrals are supposed to last for the ages. Notre Dame. St. Patrick's.

---But, then again, I guess there's not much demand for a luxury suite to the 530PM Mass.

---But, the Yankees are doing a terrific job honoring its ballpark in its last year. Totally outshining the Mets who have completely butchered the last season at Shea.

---Where is the last Shea Oldtimers Day? Where is the last Banner Day? Instead, we get Mr. Met flipping a number every game on the outfield wall.

---And, oh, yeah, Merengue Night when they had somebody sounding like Charo working the public address.

---A major league franchise that treats its fans like they're at a Single A ball game.

---One more baseball announcing Caray goes buns up. Skip, longtime shill for the Atlanta Braves, went to that great TBS broadcast booth in the sky. I am guessing his funeral will be scheduled for 7:40.

---In tribute to Skip, play-by-play announcers across the country will simultaneously use the word "we" in a sentence.

---Except for the swimming and diving events, I couldn't give a shit about the Olympics. If athletes need to train in the most optimum conditions, why the heck are they holding these games in a country as polluted, toxic, and filthy as China?

---Can you imagine how many fender benders there will be in the parking lot after the opening ceremonies?

---I definitely avoid watching track and field. How exciting is it to watch some Kenyan run around a track?

---There's a darn good reason why those Africans run so fast. Two words: angry rhinoceros.

---During its first season, I tried multiple times to get into the critically acclaimed "Mad Men." And couldn't.

---So, the second season started and I dived right in. Midway through the premiere episode....

----ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz.

---For me, "Mad Men" is obviously a video dog whistle.

Off I go for my appointment with Dr. Bob Hartley. Or maybe I'll stop over to see what's doing at Rev. Wright's old church.

Dinner last night: A White Sox version of the Dodger Dog (Bratwurst) at US Cellular Field.