Former Cleveland Indians Manny Ramirez is the best right fielder Paul Hoynes ever saw
Sunday, July 15, 2007Paul Hoynes Plain Dealer Reporter

The face of the best right fielder I've ever seen was expressionless. On a table in the middle of the visitor's locker room at the Metrodome was his suitcase. It had been slashed over and over again with a knife.

The pale blue suitcase was old and worn, and Manny Ramirez brought it with him from the minors when the Indians called him up on Sept. 1, 1993. All around him was laughter from the veteran Indians, who made fun of the shy rookie and his ruined suitcase. It seemed cruel at the time -- and it still does -- remembering Ramirez's face.

He looked like a high school kid, trying to be brave, not far from tears. The suitcase was too old to buy. A suitcase like that comes from home.

On Sept. 2, 1993, Ramirez made his big-league debut as the Tribe's designated hitter. He went 0-for-4 against Kevin Tapani and Carl Willis in a 4-3 victory over the Twins. Willis is now the Indians pitching coach.

Why the harsh treatment on the day of his debut?

Maybe some of the veterans were afraid. They'd heard about Ramirez all season. When he finally arrived, he did so as Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year after hitting a combined .333 (163-for-489) with 31 homers and 115 RBI at Class AA Akron and Class AAA Charlotte.

They knew he'd come to take somebody's job.

The Indians roster was filled with Latin American players. Many of them had left home with the same kind of suitcase. It's doubtful any of them were ever welcomed to the big leagues like that, even if Ramirez did get a new suitcase out of the deal.

I know I never saw it happen to another Indians rookie.

The next day, the Indians opened a three-game series against the Yankees in the Bronx, not far from where Ramirez grew up in Washington Heights. A bobbing mass of people in the lower left field grandstand at Yankee Stadium came to greet one of their own. They never stopped gyrating or making noise. They carried signs and chanted as if they were at a soccer game
Ramirez did not disappoint them.

In his first at-bat, Ramirez hit a ground-rule double to left field off Melido Perez for his first big-league hit. In the sixth, he hit his first big-league homer, a two-run drive to right to knock Perez out of the game. In the eighth, he homered again, this time to left field off Paul Gibson.

Ramirez went 3-for-4 with two homers and three RBI in his second game. A career-long affinity for hitting the Yankees, especially at Yankee Stadium, was established.

Ramirez is a lifetime .315 (216-for-686) hitter against New York with 51 homers and 151 RBI. He's hitting.311 (112-for-360) with 26 homers and 72 RBI at Yankee Stadium.

I have seen a lot of great right fielders. If I hadn't picked Ramirez, it would have been Vladimir Guerrero of the Angels. Or maybe Tony Gwynn or Andre Dawson if I'd seen them in their prime.

Ramirez's prime sprung right in front of me. It was impossible to ignore.

Defensively, he certainly wasn't the most graceful right fielder, but he went to the gap and to the line much better than people think. He did not have a great arm, a Juan Gonzalez-type arm, but he almost always hit the cutoff man.

His mistakes became local punch lines. Ramirez did not hide from them.

After dropping a ball in right field one night, he pushed a big plastic laundry cart around the clubhouse the next day.

"Hey, Enrique," he shouted to teammate Enrique Wilson, "how do you like my new glove?"
There was the playoff game at Yankee Stadium, when he splattered himself against the outfield fence, back toward home plate, as if he was Spider Man climbing the fence in chase of an apparent home run by Derek Jeter. The ball hit just below Ramirez's right ankle, about three feet above the ground.

Ramirez, of course, never saw it coming.

In a regular-season game at Yankee Stadium, he gave chase into the right-field corner after a fly ball. While all eyes followed him into the corner, the ball fell about 20 feet behind him on the warning track.

All that was forgotten when Ramirez came to the plate. Everyday living might have sped past Ramirez unchecked, but at the plate, with a bat in his hands, everything slowed to his speed. He never seemed to take a bad swing, look off balance, argue with an umpire or toss his helmet in frustration.

Boos or bad calls didn't bother him because he belonged at the plate.

Charlie Manuel, former Indians hitting coach, once found Kevin Seitzer and Julio Franco working with Ramirez on hitting to right field. Manuel shooed them away as if they were naughty children. He didn't want singles hitters messing with one of baseball's smoothest and hard-earned power swings.

Ramirez, who homered in his final at-bat with the Indians in 2000, has spent the past seven years in Boston. To hear those close to the Red Sox talk, he has become strange and isolated - baseball's Howard Hughes. But I think he's still mostly a shy kid with a one-of-a-kind swing.