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.”

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.