"From the Twitter feed of Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez earlier this season:

Ramirez announces his arrival this day by referring to himself in the third person and saying he is "en la casa" -- in the house. One of his followers writes Ramirez's casa is actually Apartamento 208 — Ramirez's batting average at the time. Ramirez responds that he lives in Apartamento 70 — that number being his contract's worth, in millions.

Baseball is a quiet, slow game framed by poets and literati who describe it with words like "pastoral." It is country-club golf with fewer divots and more Dominicans. The participants in America's game — players, broadcasters, executives — spend a lot of the downtime talking about respect. Respect the game, the veterans, the unwritten codes, the umpires. Respect your opponent, your elders, your fans and your place in the game. It is all very adult. And then, if there is any hint of blasphemous disrespect, the players will start throwing baseballs at each other.

So here comes a strutting talent like Ramirez into this church. He is wealthy and stylish and immature and uneducated, new money at an old-money gala, playing their game his bejeweled way in what he still calls their country. He doesn't seem to respect whatever he is supposed to respect very well, and this seems to infuriate just about everyone in this pastoral world.

This is true in his own clubhouse, where he has been confronted by not one but two teammates; in his own front office, where he has been ripped publicly by not one but two assistants to the president; and even in the owner's box, where emotional Jeff Loria once felt so insulted by Ramirez that he became livid and yelled about wanting him traded. (Loria wanted Ramirez to cut his hair and went to discuss it in the clubhouse; Ramirez turned his back to the owner and got on his cellphone.)

Manny being Manny

We're used to rap sheets with diva wide receivers in football, but it isn't very common in our pastoral sport. This is why another gifted Ramirez, Manny, was so alternately comical and mortifying in his infamy — comical when hitting .330 and winning championships, mortifying when throwing the traveling secretary on the floor and getting traded. That Ramirez was a mystery, too, but usually felt like a goofy, harmless one because he smiled more and slumped less than this one. He, too, was questioned about caring and body language, but the criticism wasn't so public, and it wasn't coming so often from co-workers on his side of the scoreboard."