His story: History

Ramirez deeply concerned that hits keep coming

Sox slugger Manny Ramírez didn't compete, but he likes what he sees in last night's Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium. (Mike Segar/Reuters)

NEW YORK - His chair sat empty, slightly askew, off in a corner next to David Ortiz. A stray water bottle, unopened, was on the table. In a bustling room, filled with hundreds of journalists looking for a sound bite, searching for a bit of news, there was little to discover at Manny Ramírez's table. Just a cardboard sign, bearing his name, like the ones hung up behind every other chair and every other table in the vast ballroom, promising one of the best of all time.

"I can't believe you're still expecting Manny," Ortiz said, sitting at his table at All-Star player media availability day yesterday morning. "You know better."

But this year, the year of the Manny quote, perhaps it's not so unrealistic. Ramírez, ever the enigma, has left behind a shell that began cracking in the postseason last year, the reverberations of his home run off Francisco Rodriguez in the playoffs and his upcoming contract option year. He has opened up, as he also has continued to chase history that may or may not continue in a Sox uniform next season.

There have been highs and lows, of course, of a serious nature (his shove of Sox traveling secretary Jack McCormick) and a silly one (his in-game cellphone use inside the Green Monster).

Yet what is there in the end are the numbers. And despite a bit of a slump over the past month, from which he appears to be emerging, Ramírez has been incredibly consistent. Consistent enough that, in his 16th season in the big leagues, his name appears on many of the shortest lists in baseball. Like, say, the eight play ers who have at least 500 home runs, 1,600 RBIs, and a .300 career average. (That would be Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Frank Thomas, Mel Ott, and Ramírez.)

"Think about it," the Red Sox' Alex Cora said. "People talk about [Roberto] Clemente. He was probably the best outfielder from Latin America, and Manny's numbers are way, way better [except for] the 3,000 hits, obviously. But [Ramírez] might be the best outfielder coming out of Latin America. He is. In my book, he is. And I'm from Puerto Rico. We're not supposed to say that about Clemente."

The numbers match up, except for those 3,000 hits by Clemente, with Ramírez trailing at 2,305.

"He's one of the best righthanded hitters to play this game in my generation," Sox catcher Jason Varitek said. "You had your Edgar Martinez, and Manny kind of took over that, and took that another step. At times, you just shake your head at some of the things that go on that he's able to do.

"You saw his human side, maybe two years ago, at the beginning of the last two years, when he ran into his first bumps. Then he had to really learn himself, learn how to get himself back on track. To have that consistency and not run into any lumps until like your 10th, 11th year in the big leagues, that's pretty special."

There were bumps this season, fastballs that in prior years would have been line drives now hit the catcher's glove. Pitchers were beating him. And that, for Ramírez, was certainly odd.

He doesn't get beaten by fastballs, no matter who throws them. Except he did, hitting just .179 from June 12 to July 6, with two doubles and one home run in that span.

"It wasn't so much the velocity," Sox manager Terry Francona said. "Like a lot of hitters, you get beat in at-bats you start trying to be quicker. So you start going forward or you start your stride late or early. All of a sudden, there's something in your swing that wasn't there two days ago and now the ball's beating you. It happens to everybody. Just, when it happens to Manny, because he's such a good hitter, everybody pauses to go, 'Whoa,' ourselves included."

Ramírez rebounded the last six games before the All-Star break, with 11 hits in his final 22 at-bats, including two home runs. He had turned it around, yet again. Like he always has, like he seems to think he always will. Like when he was in high school, back at 14 or so, the hair not yet in dreadlocks, the name not yet mentioned among the greats.

Ramírez, with his childhood friend Richard Lopez, would get up at 5:30 in the morning, in the snow. They would run. Thirty minutes. Forty minutes. Whatever it took. Whatever was needed to bring him to this point, staring at history and the Hall of Fame, to a point where he can care so much and no longer care, all at the same time.

"Sometimes when I'm hanging out with my friends that I went to high school with, I think that means more than what I accomplish in the game," said Ramírez a day before his absence from the media session, for which he will not be fined. "That's just me. I like the game. I like to compete. But I don't think a lot about the numbers.

"Even when I went to see Pedro [Martínez] in the Dominican, we were sitting on his ranch, next to the pool, eating chicken, relaxed, having fun. That's life. The game is going to be the game. Why I got to get a big head about this? I don't want to have a big head, because when I don't have [baseball], I won't miss it."

Ramírez, from his hiring of Scott Boras as his agent to his vows that he'll play up to six more seasons, has signaled that the time for relaxing by the pool year-round hasn't yet come. He has more in him. More hits and more drive, more reason to get up early, head for a 10 a.m. workout, swing in the cages, maintain a routine that has spanned the years. One that was developed when he was in Cleveland, learning at the feet of Albert Belle and Kenny Lofton and Eddie Murray, to today, when young players are the ones coming up to him.

There is much he could tell them. Like Jacoby Ellsbury, often seen talking to Ramírez. Or those at this All-Star Game, the first-timers watching in awe Ramírez, named to his 12th team, though attending his ninth. But the outfielder won't approach them. He won't walk up to Evan Longoria or Ian Kinsler or Josh Hamilton.

"I don't want to bother nobody," he said. "I don't want to step in somebody's privacy if I don't know them. I don't know how they're going to react to me. That's why I'm always in my place."

Yesterday morning, that was no place. Nowhere near the ballroom filled with his fellow All-Stars. Nowhere near the questions and the tape recorders and the microphones. He was in New York - he later would show up for the American League's workout at Yankee Stadium - but far from there. Maybe he was at home, Washington Heights, scene of those long, cold runs. Maybe not.

By the end of the 40-minute media session, someone had sneaked off with the placard bearing his name. There was nothing left to remind anyone that he hadn't been there, just the silence that used to be his hallmark, the silence that has fallen away this year.

"I'm proud," he had said the day before about his 12th All-Star selection, while standing up to end an interview, finally an admission of understanding and appreciation. "Now I've got to go work on 13."

Amalie Benjamin can be reached at abenjamin@globe.com.