He is here to hit, not to love us back. Charles Steinberg, who joined the Dodgers this season as chief marketing officer after six seasons in Boston, said he did not ask Ramirez to participate in Red Sox community programs, heeding the advice of two of his former teammates.
"He's kind and he's friendly, but leave him alone and let him play ball," Steinberg said he was told. "It's what he was put on this Earth to do. Don't interrupt his world."
He might be happiest alone, in the batting cage, with no one else around. No one questions his work ethic. Garciaparra said Ramirez would watch video for hours on end, would hit in the cage at 7 a.m. before a night game and at 7 p.m. after a day game.
"He's as gifted a hitter as you've ever seen," said another former teammate, Tony Clark of the Arizona Diamondbacks. "What gets lost is how hard he works to excel at his craft. His success is not an accident."
The Red Sox management looked the other way so long as Ramirez kept hitting home runs, and everyone smiled during two championship parades, but this year the Sox finally had enough.
Ramirez fought with teammate Kevin Youkilis in the dugout, shoved the team's traveling secretary to the ground and accused management of lying to him, an allegation owner John Henry told the Boston Herald was "personally offensive."
According to pitcher Curt Schilling, Ramirez expressed his unhappiness by not playing hard, and not only this week.
"You're taking the field with a guy who doesn't want to play with you, doesn't want to be there, doesn't want to . . . obviously effort-wise is just not there and that's disheartening and disappointing," Schilling told radio station WEEI.
Added Schilling: "I've always wondered how we came to be OK with, 'He's just not gonna play hard today,' and that was OK."
He ought to play hard here, for his own good. He'll be a free agent this fall, and he's playing for the last big contract of his life. That should be motivation enough.
He could reinvent himself in Hollywood too. If he carries the Dodgers into the World Series, he's got to be a good guy, doesn't he?
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bill.shaikin@latimes.com
