I do not quite understand why sportswriters feel privileged to accuse a baseball player of faking injuries. I saw this last year with much of the Boston press, and it revolted me at the time.

Anybody who thinks Manny would intentionally pull himself out of a big game or intentionally strike out in a key situation should own up to the fact that the burden of proof is on the accuser, and that having a lot of innuendo implied by a large number of people is a poor substitute for actually saying anything worthwhile.

It's sad that you indulge in this speculation, when the rest of the analysis is spot on. The issue is that MLB is not in an "age of escalating salaries" right now. Manny's contract was signed several years ago when the expectation was that salaries would continue to rise at the rate that they did in the 90s. They haven't done so. With that in mind, it makes little sense that Manny is paid 50% more than Albert Pujols.

Manny shouldn't have gotten in the altercation with the Red Sox travelling secretary? I agree completely. Manny is a spotty defender? Yes, but he does throw out more baserunners than people often realize. He's also still one of the top hitters in the game. But I'm not seeing the case to be made that he's a malingerer. And I think the fact that this rumor has been so widely disseminated is a function of latent racism.

Case in point: Trot Nixon was universally loved by the Boston media, but repeatedly was in much worse physical shape than Ramirez, and repeatedly missed long stretches of time year after year as a result. Manny Ramirez, OTOH, was a 150+ game/year until his injury last year. And the first time he has a major injury, all sorts of people start calling him a quitter and a malingerer. That's poor.

If the Sox want to let Manny walk at the end of the year, that is their prerogative. I understand the notion that he's not worth that salary any more. I just hope that the Sox would have a better plan in place than the "replace Mo Vaughn with Jose Offerman" idea.

A lot of fans think it is easy to plug in a new player to meet needs. Sox fans know that often players like Julio Lugo and Coco Crisp come to Boston and underwhelm. One advantage to Manny's obliviousness is that he has historically performed at a very high level regardless of whatever nonsense is being written about him at the time.

I hope Obama is not falling into the trap of picking an extremely weak candidtae solely because of his geographical origin, or picking a party very far from the main political thinking of the Democratic party. I like Kaine, but he should not be the VP solely because he's from VA. Mark Warner would be a better candidate, but apparently he's not interested.

As for Bayh, I don't think his party affiliation alone should mean he qualifies for the label "centrist". Furthermore, even Bayh on the ticket would do little to move Indiana out of the GOP column. Also, I think the inclusion of Bayh as a super-conservative is both unnecessary and undesirable for Obama.

I would prefer Clinton as a VP over any of the others named, except that I think that her presence would serve as a constant distraction to Obama.

At what point do we stop behaving like this is just "how things work" and call the various people involved, like the people at the Post who trim the quote to suit their purposes, as practitioners of journalistic malpractice. They are deliberately deceiving their audience.

Just like whoever produced the Gallup poll showing McCain ahead by 4 points by assuming that Obama supporters are 8 times as likely as McCain supporters to decide to not vote.