There continue to be Manny surprises

Can't shake the guy.

Wherever I go, there's Manny.

I talk to Andruw Jones before he goes to Las Vegas, and Manny pulls up a chair. I chat with Casey Blake, and Manny interrupts, apologizing to Blake, but he needs to talk.

I take a few days off and he wants to know where I've been.

I'm expecting a malcontent, maybe a mope like Gary Matthews Jr. and at the very least someone distant and difficult to interview. Instead, I get an offer to sit on his lap.

I argue with Jeff Kent, and suddenly I feel this tug on my arm. It's Manny, pulling me away from Kent -- Manny the peacemaker, protecting Kent in the batting order and off the field as well when he thinks I'm upsetting Kent.

He says he will donate $1,000 to Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA for every homer, $300 for every RBI, $100 for every single and while the bitter folks in Boston say he never makes good on his charitable pledges, he has the Dodgers take the donations directly out of his pay -- the first check already hitting the hospital.

He says he'd rather not make the donations known publicly, agreeing to do so only when told it might encourage others to help the kids.

He's nothing like the bitter folks describe him in Boston, the e-mail continuing to pour in, "just wait," they say -- the Red Sox apparently no longer as interesting to watch, so Boston fans needing to do something with their time.

Maybe he's on his best behavior and following a "how-to-win-a-big-contract" script written by agent Scott Boras. Maybe he's donating money to the children's hospital to curry favor with Page 2.

Maybe he's just a big phony, albeit a phony hitting more than .400 and fooling the other Dodgers into thinking they have what it takes to win the division.

"I guess the thing that surprises me," Dodgers coach Larry Bowa says, "is the way the younger players migrate to him. A lot of young guys are intimidated by a superstar, but his personality makes them so comfortable with him."

Or, as a young Matt Kemp puts it, "He's like us. He's like a kid playing the game for fun, and isn't it supposed to be fun?"

Manny takes it one step further. He wants everyone to see him as a big goof who just steps into the batter's box hacking.

"He picks up his wife, he hasn't seen her for a while, and he's on his iPhone looking at his at-bats," Boras says. "He's a hitting maniac."

But I bet he gives his wife a card on her birthday.