Tito: Manny ‘worst human being I ever met'

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In the "How did I miss this?" department . . .

Thanks to Tyler Kepner of the New York Times, this Terry Francona quote -- "Manny Ramirez is the worst human being Ive ever met" -- is suddenly going viral on the Internet. It's from a Peter Gammons story on MLB.com which ran last November that actually had nothing to with Ramirez and very little to do with Francona; it was about Bobby Valentine and how he was going to change the culture with the Red Sox.

But now that Ramirez is back in the news, so is an overlooked, all-but forgotten judgment of the slugger by Francona.

Manny's old news hereabouts -- his departure occurred four years ago this July, and the A's are his fourth post-Boston stop -- and, really, it's not shocking that he's a contender for that particular title. We had a close-up look at his act for nearly eight years. He had his defenders, to be sure, but the fact is no one really cared what kind of a guy he was. He could hit. And to us (or to many of us), that's all that mattered.

Five years ago, in the days of .320 seasons and 40 home runs and general offensive awesomeness, Manny Ramirez could get away with being the worst human being Terry Francona had ever met. Now that he's not that kind of a hitter anymore, he probably can't.

Which is probably why the quote is gaining attention now.

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