bullets13 Posted March 12, 2009 Report Posted March 12, 2009 Jonathan Papelbon is apparently still unhappy with Manny Ramirez. Papelbon reportedly calls Ramirez a "cancer" in the April issue of Esquire. The Boston Herald and MLB.com reported the Boston Red Sox closer's comments on Thursday. "It just takes one guy to bring an entire team down, and that's exactly what was happening," Papelbon reportedly told the magazine. "Once we saw that, we weren't afraid to get rid of him. It's like cancer. That's what he was. Cancer. He had to go. It [stunk], but that was the only scenario that was going to work. That was it for us." The Red Sox dealt Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers at last season's trade deadline after a messy divorce, in which the Red Sox felt Ramirez, who had a pair of $20 million team options slated for 2009 and 2010, was trying to play his way out of town so he and his agent, Scott Boras, could test free agency during the offseason. Ramirez eventually signed a two-year, $45 million offer with the Dodgers -- the only team known to have offered him a deal. "He was on a different train!" Papelbon reportedly said of Ramirez in Esquire. "And you saw what happened with that. We got rid of him, and we moved on without him. That comes from the manager, and it comes from guys like Jason Varitek and Tim Wakefield and David Ortiz. Nobody is ever going to be allowed to do that." "So Manny was tough for us," Papelbon reportedly added. "You have somebody like him, you know at any point in the ball game, he can dictate the outcome of the game. And for him not to be on the same page as the rest of the team was a killer, man!"
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