Manny Ramirez had surgery on a groin injury he didn’t even know about

Manny Ramirez underwent hernia surgery shortly after the season ended, but yesterday agent Scott Boras told reporters that Ramirez “didn’t know about” the injury. Seriously.

According to Boras:

I’m not sure Manny knew about it. In fact, I know he didn’t know about it because we were all surprised. I don’t think Manny felt anything affected him during the season. It’s just the fact that when you find out you’ve got a situation where you’ve got to have surgery for a hernia-like situation, you obviously know it’s impactful. We found out that Manny had some medical maladies that had to be surgically repaired in the offseason. It had a pretty big impact on his performance.

Boras saying “it had a pretty big impact on his performance” despite also saying that Ramirez “didn’t know about it” is basically a perfect portrayal of the public’s perception of each person.

Boras is trying to spin it so that Ramirez’s complete lack of production following a trade to the White Sox can be blamed on the injury, no doubt to help stir up some free agent interest. At the same time Ramirez, who has long had a reputation for being oblivious to just about everything but hitting a baseball, played most of the season with a groin injury that eventually required surgery and “didn’t know about it.”

For whatever it’s worth, Boras also said that Ramirez is now fully recovered from the surgery and has a “good” market that involves “multiple teams” being interested. Whether or not Ramirez is aware of any of that remains unclear.