"Denise Cook, a mortgage lender from Chicago, attended the Rays' spring training opener Saturday. In the bottom of the fourth inning, she was strolling on an outdoor concourse at Charlotte Sports Park when a foul ball struck the left side of her head, shattering her $350 designer sunglasses and bloodying her face. Her boyfriend, Bryan, grabbed the baseball.

Cook was led to the stadium's first aid station and patched up, big Band-Aid, but nothing serious. Then she realized that Rays third baseman Evan Longoria and new Ray Manny Ramirez were leading off the fourth. Who had bloodied her face?

"Please let it be Manny," she thought.

Why?

"What do you mean why? He's Manny ," Denise Cook said.

Manny Mania made its spring training debut Saturday. Manny jerseys sprinkled the park, though powder blue Manny T-shirts moved slowly at the gift shop, as did 50 percent-off Carl Crawford Rays jerseys.

And there was the Manny himself, who singled to right in his first spring at-bat, then lined to right after fouling off several pitches, one off Denise Cook, before calling it a DH day.

Today, Manny works without a net. He'll play left field.

"Before the game, I was kind of nervous," Ramirez said Saturday. "I felt good. I'm getting there. I wasn't really concerned about getting hits. I just wanted to get the feel, like feeling it, the way I was. I'm getting there."

Before the game, he sported a "Manny Ray" T-shirt, complete with sea creature sporting dreadlocks instead of a stinger. A lot of the Rays received them in the mail.

"You saw the T-shirts the guy sent?" Manny asked. "You know something, man, I don't even know the guy."

The shirts were from the newfound Web site, MannyRay.com, which is selling Manny Ray shirts at $18 a pop.

Move over, Mannywood.

"You're going to be able to sell Manny Rays, little Rays on stick with dreadlocks," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "That has so much potential it's sickening."

Said Manny:

"Why don't you call the guy and tell him, hey, Manny wants a percentage or whatever."

Manny laughed.

Right now, it's all good."