Is It The Whiskey Talking?

Here is some food for thought just in time for the second half of the season. Is this Lobel coming out with a juicy story, or is it a case of Lobel being back on the sauce?

Boston.com - According to former WBZ sports director Bob Lobel, Manny Ramirez was fined a six-figure amount for his June altercation with Red Sox traveling secretary Jack McCormick — and he wasn’t happy about it.

“Manny was fined six figures to go to a charity,” Lobel said this morning on sports radio WEEI. “That got [Manny’s] attention … he became a petulant child by being punished. No matter what the crime was, pushing an employee, that was the issue … he acted out [after they fined him]. They got his attention. He doesn’t like to be punished in any way, shape, or form… ”

Lobel’s strong words didn’t stop there. He went on to allege that there was a perception that in a pinch-hit at bat at Yankee Stadium on July 6 — more than a week after the incident with McCormick — Ramirez took three straight called strikes to send a message to the Sox.

“The thing that most people are forgetting and haven’t talked about is the strikeout in Yankee Stadium,” Lobel said. “The bat on the shoulder for the three pitches from Mariano Rivera. That was a big [expletive] to the Red Sox after the fine. I’m just telling you … there are things in the front office that are perceived … I’m saying that there is a strong feeling that that [three-pitch strikeout] was the message to the Red Sox and it’s a strong feeling that that’s unacceptable … there’s a feeling that he didn’t give it his all, let’s put it that way … I’m just saying the front office has not forgotten that moment. It’s akin to Nomar sitting on the bench [in a game in which Derek Jeter dove into the stands at Yankee Stadium in 2004]. It’s the same thing. It’s an at bat that resonated very strongly in the front office.”

Right now I am not willing to let my brain imagine a world without Manny in left field, but if this has any amount of truth to it, we could be seeing that next year.

I ask you, do you find some truth in this or do you think Lobel’s been sippin’ a little too much?