…One of the dumbest and most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen written.
Manny’s a Hall-of-Famer, but I’d be more impressed if he was a .280 singles hitter who ran out every grounder and found better uses for his millions than a fleet of pimped-up cars.
The whole column by Kevin Cullen was pretty awful, but that line sealed the deal. Manny is a baseball player – he impresses because of his Hall of Fame skills and is paid his millions because he IS a Hall of Fame player, NOT a .280 singles hitter. The big about him running out every grounder is of course the oldest, lamest most cliche criticism in the book. Has Cullen watched David Ortiz or even Jason Varitek go down to first?
The criticism about how he spends his money is even more ludicrous. Who cares how Manny spends his money? Not to mention that if Manny were the .280 hustling singles hitter that Cullen wishes he were, he wouldn’t have his millions to spend on “pimped-up” cars or anything else.
The whole column was written in judgment of Manny by someone who’d I’d venture to guess only knows Ramirez through the coverage of Dan Shaughnessy.
Popularity: 18% [?]
100% agreement, with the slight caveat that I couldn’t care less what Kevin Cullen thinks about anything. Thanks for the Dublin coverage, Kev; sorry you think there’s not enough factional homicide back here.
I think sometimes that I’m marginalized as a crank, but there’s something seriously unhinged at that newspaper, symbolized by the LARGEST EVERY BYLINE given Shank in his Celtics playoff squirtings.
Not a great day for the Irish, that’s for certain.
The worse the Sox play, the dumber the comments. Especially from Golf Boy and the Giant Forehead.
If he wasn’t a Globe columnist, D&C would have him on as a guest… pronto!
Cullen is reaching for a slice of the CHB pie. So a Globe reporter doesn’t understand a Boston sports figure? That’s as rare as a pout from Peyton, a clutch hit from A-Rod in October, a useful comment from Felger.
……Kevin WHO?…never heard of him
You should have. They guy had to flee to Ireland because he dared question Whitey and the boys, all the while Mike Barnicle was claiming that Whitey kept the drugs out of Southie. While in Ireland, Kevin Cullen provided some great coverage in a very important time for the country and the Six Counties.
Whatever you think of today’s column, chalk it up to overreaching because he is one of the best the Globe has.
…well, I guess that tells you I only look at the globe sports section….it’s all fine and good that Cullen is an excellent NEWS reporter…but after that Manny column, I think he should stick to hard news.
“…found better uses for his millions than a fleet of pimped-up cars.” In other words, contributed it to fixing Global Warming or ‘invested’ it in the public school system…or any number of liberal causes that the Globe thinks are ‘more worthy’ depositories for people’s money.
This used to drive me crazy. Sports columnists are not allowed to express opinions on non-sports issues on the sensible grounds of “who cares what you think about that.” But non-sports columnists can shoot their mouths off about sports whenever they want, despite the fact they NEVER have anything to do say on the issue that couldn’t have been gleaned from the guy at the third barstool down.
This is a problem at ALL newspapers and should not be interpreted as a rip of Kevin. I think he’s a good columnist who wrote a foolish column. We all do, and I had my share.
Cullen is a solid reporter and, on the whole, a very good Metro columnist. (Lightyears better than Barnicle or McGrory, IMO). His coverage from Dublin was excellent. But this was a cheap shot.
And, having been a journo, I have witnessed many verbal and a few physical confrontations in newsrooms — despite the tongue-clucking, finger-wagging, PC-dominated environment of today, it even happens at places like the Globe, according to my friends who work there.
Who reports on THAT?
Having said that, his sub ,280 BA and prolonged slump are sure to get Manny’s ticket punched unless he turns it around between the white lines.
I don’t care what Manny does with his money or his life and it’s long past the time sports writers have any business commenting on it.
I take Mr. Gee’s and Mr. Soldier’s point, but I think it ignores the slow but steady meshing of sports with entertainment and entertainers with public affairs. This is either a welcome consolidation into a holistic world view or evidence that once given a soapbox, some people can’t stop talking. I can see Gee’s gripe from a sportwriter’s perspective (”Why am I closed into this small box?”) but it’s important to realize that the way that most sportswriters (or business writers or theater critics or any other niche writer) GOT their job was by having some unusual amount of understanding of a specialized subject. If they didn’t know that, they should have applied for a position as General Assignment Reporter. I agree (and stated in my first comment here) that Cullen did praiseworthy work on a subject most US media outlets essentially ignored — the Irish/British situation — but that doesn’t excuse him for coming back and trying to leap to the head of the class in the Shank/Callahan/Masarotti wolfpack of pansy snarkers.
Quite simply: Asinine
Never heard of Mr. Cullen before, I’ll avoid his work from now on.
There’s an old saying in baseball: “Don’t think too much, you’re hurting the team.”
Manny does exactly what we pay him to do: kill the ball, drive in runs, win games, and feast on opposing pitching like a hungry orca. He has a beautiful swing, he wins ballgames, and brings joy to people on a regular basis.
Who cares what Manny spends his money on?
In this day of shrinking newspaper revenues, massive downsizing, and the increasing irrelevance of the Globe Sports section (Gosh, how far has that fallen?), you would think a better survival strategy would be to ad value for the reader/fan instead of pissing them off.
When I think of the Boston Globe Sports department these days, I’m reminded of Robert De Niro’s last scene in Tarantino’s film “Jackie Brown”. Right before Samuel Jackson’s character shoots him in the gut for screwing up, he says sadly:
“What the f#*k happened to you man? You used to be beautiful.”