Author: Anthony Stalter (Page 1292 of 1503)

Manny “Being Manny” Ramirez said Thursday he wants to finish his career with the Boston Red Sox.

“I want to stay here, but it’s up to them if they want to bring me,” he said. “But if they don’t want to bring me back, that’s fine. I know I’ll be a free agent after ’08 so that’s another thing that I’m looking forward (to).”

The slugging left fielder is in the last year of an eight-year contract. Beyond that, the team has options for the next two seasons at $20 million each.

“It’s up to them to say, ‘OK, we’re going take (the option). It’s not up to me to go into the office and demand a four-year deal, whatever,” the 35-year-old Ramirez said. ” No, I’m going come here to play the game, finish my year. If they want me to come back, I’ll come back.”

Okay, it’s Thursday right? By 5:00pm Friday let’s see if he’s singing the same tune. This guy changes his mind more than Bill Parcells in a contract year.

When discussing baseball’s drug-testing policy Wednesday at Yankees’ spring training camp, third basemen Alex Rodriguez raised some eyebrows after saying he was tested “9 or 10 times” last year.

A-Rod said he understood all of this, and made the point by noting that he was drug-tested “nine or 10 times” last season. It seemed to be his way of putting the situation in context, noting that he had to be clean because of what he called baseball’s “very strict (drug-testing) policy.”

The problem is that apparently no player would be tested that many times in a season unless he had tested positive for amphetamines or otherwise given MLB reason to target him.

A-Rod seems to be the kind of guy who says thinks at times just to hear himself talk. He doesn’t really think before he makes comments and therefore leaves himself open for criticism. If he were to just take a moment to think about what’s coming out of his mouth, I’m willing to bet the media would get off his back.