To top off what has become a Hanley Ramirez morning, let us take a walk down memory lane -- way back to last October -- to Jorge Arangure’s profile of Ramirez for ESPN, in which Ramirez’s attitude -- though, to be fair, not his work ethic -- was cast into serious doubt.
And let’s be clear about this: there are two separate things happening with Hanley Ramirez at the moment. On the one hand we have last night’s incident, which was an example of a guy not playing hard. That could have and should have ended last night with the benching, some conciliatory words and a good night’s sleep.
Today’s unapologetic garbage from Ramirez about how he doesn’t respect Fredi Gonzalez because he never played in the big leagues is a matter of attitude -- not hustle -- and it’s on par with what Arangure wrote about last fall. It’s also much, much worse for the Marlins than any amount of lollygagging can ever be.
