How many truly spontaneous curtain calls
have you ever seen? On Saturday night I saw a rare one, live, after
Manny hit his first homer as a Dodger. They called Ramirez out of the
dugout and hip tipped his cap. Then I saw my second, on Sunday, after
he
hit
dinger numero dos. Suddenly, LA fans, some of the lamest and most
laidback creatures in the realm of pro sports, are losing it,
wholesale. According to AP: Ramirez is even getting loud ovations for
making the simplest of catches in left field -- and when he strikes out.

Can you grasp how amped I am? The Kid missed Fernandomania, so Mannymania will have to suffice. It sure is loud. (I like it loud.)
This weekend's Dodgers baseball — youthful and browning, hardly
recognizable — seems to have swapped Steve Garvey for Marcus Garvey as
cultural icons. At Saturday's game I actually saw the Conscious Man in the Monarchs jersey, an archetype unseen by me much 'round Chavez Ravine.

Someone must say it: The home stadium could feel a black-free zone sometimes. If an old-school revival
was just happened to be on pre-game, there might be more  blacks
on-field than in seat. Black LA wasn't relating so much to Matt Kemp,
Juan Pierre and the crew, which is just sad. Now you have, fittingly,
Manny. Manny whose recalcitrance actually dates back to Albert Belle, the guy who taught him the art of hitting. Like Jim Rice before him, Manny is absorbing a bit of baseball's racial fury in the form of a Boston-style Beatdown. Bristol, Connecticut is nailing Mr. Ramirez.

Add to the mix Joe Torre's request that Manny cut his hair.
Is the very notion insane or what? Personally, I have no regrets about
removing my dreadlocks. Yet I cannot deny that the shock of being
without my locks — what I believe were my antennae to the universe —
rocked my life a bit. Manny is hitting .615 with two homers and five
RBIs in three games. Can't an old-school MLB guy like Torre see that
nothing's broke here to fix? Please, Frank: Don't let Skip tinker with
the Man Ram just to sate a need to control. Let Manny fucking be Manny
and let the game — and merchandising receipts — come to you.

Donnell Alexander is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Sports & Fitness. He posts Mondays and Thursdays.