Written by Brian McPeek

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Peeks has had enough.  In a period of about three weeks Manny Ramirez and Brett Favre treated us all to perhaps the two most egregious examples of selfishness and vile athletic behavior that he can recall as a sports fan.  Manny quit on a Red Sox team paying him 20 million a year in a city full of people that idolized him.  Favre put a Glock to the temple of the Packer front office all while playing the martyr role to the media.  Peeks expresses his disgust.

Maybe it's just me getting old. Maybe it has nothing to do with age and everything to do with seeing the same thing way too many times not to be affected.  

In a period of about three weeks Manny Ramirez and Brett Favre treated us all to perhaps the two most egregious examples of selfishness and vile athletic behavior that I can recall as a sports fan. 

Hell, maybe it's not even these two stories that hit a nerve so much as it is the cumulative effect of all the selfish acts of athletes you're exposed to from the time you're old enough to care. All I know is my reaction to these two guys is to be completely disgusted with them both. 

Manny Ramirez forced the Red Sox to deal him to the Dodgers at last Thursday's MLB trade deadline. No big deal. Teams deal players at the deadline all the time. In fact, Ramirez wasn't even the only surefire Hall of Famer to be dealt as the White Sox dealt for Ken Griffey Jr. that same day. 

Plenty of folks fall back on the tired, hopeless, utterly overused and patently stupid cliché that it was just "Manny being Manny". That sometimes you have to pay a hefty price for a hitting savant and the truly gifted tend to be mercurial and off center. A lot of those Ramirez defenders can't get the precocious kid who came up with the Indians out of their heads. He can still do no wrong despite the fact he left in a similar money-grab as every other star who has played Summer Stock  here on their way to starring down the road where the lights are brighter and the checks are bigger. 

I can handle the eccentricities. I can't handle making excuses for a lying, cheating deceitful human being who let down the only people in baseball who matter most; his teammates. 

As documented thoroughly by ESPN's Peter Gammons Ramirez begged out of big games against overpowering pitchers on more than one occasion. In fact Gammons counted six such occasions where Ramirez said he was hurting and having knee pain. Those ‘painful days' came against Joba Chamberlain (twice), Felix Hernandez (twice), Justin Verlander and Edinson Volquez. 

After the second lay-down against Chamberlain the Red Sox requested that Ramirez have an MRI done on his ‘sore' knee. The problem was that Ramirez wasn't able to remember which knee he had originally said was sore.  The Red Sox did MRIs on both, each was clean and they told Ramirez the next ‘painful day' was going to result in an unpaid suspension. 

That's when Ramirez made his impassioned ‘The Red Sox Don't Deserve Me' speech and pretty much stamped his ticket out of town. 

How eager were the Red Sox to oblige him? They paid for the remainder of hi '08 salary, waived the option year, included a couple decent prospects and paid Ramirez a $1m relocation bonus (because he could have refused the trade he had demanded) to get him the hell out of New England and in order to get Jason Bay to replace him. 

So we have the Manny is just a loveable eccentric crowd in one corner. In the other corner is the group that believes Manny's antics all came under direct orders from his newest agent Scott Boras. Both Ramirez and Boras stood to benefit from the Red Sox renouncing their $20m option for next season. Ramirez because he believes he can make more, Boras because he gets nothing out of Ramirez until a new deal is done. The Boras conspiracists would have you believe that Manny laid down, quit on his teammates, failed to play the game hard when he played at all and made a mockery of the unity that the Red Sox sought in the clubhouse, all in order to manipulate his way into a better deal next season. 

Either way, I don't give a damn. He is either too damn stupid to pay big dollars to or he's a lying, quitting, selfish piece of shit that can't be trusted with anything more than a one year deal. I know that I've grown tired of the man and the ballplayer and all the excuses people have come up with for both. He's now a one dimensional ballplayer who's getting long in the tooth and short on time. (Unless you count the lying and quitting as dimensions). Those who still see it as ‘Manny being Manny' are simply ‘People Being Stupid'. 

Same shit, different day with Brett Favre. Yes, I know the root word of ‘fan'. I understand the irrational behavior and the reluctance to criticize an icon. I had a ton of respect for Brett Favre four years ago. The guy won a lot of football games, restored the respect and pride of a once great organization that had fallen on hard times and he did it all with tremendous courage, durability and style. He was fun to watch, win or lose. 

What's not to love there? The gunslinger label fit the man. And who doesn't love a gunfighter? "Shane, come back Shane....Shane". Sure, because of all the above he got a pass on his addiction to painkillers and the pain and harm that did to all around him. But you can almost give him a pass on an issue that affects all of society.  

But you can't give him a pass on the last three years worth of crap he's put the Packers through. Every year since seemingly Clinton was banging interns in the White House Brett Favre bids a fond and tearful farewell a week after his final game of the season.  Hell, you can set your TiVo today to tape his 2011 retirement cry-fest. It was like Shane getting shot, riding off, coming back, then riding away crying, then coming back and saying he thought he'd be okay, then riding off while crying and grimacing and saying this was really the last time he'd do this and then coming back..... 

Year after year, while being durable enough to eventually throw critical interceptions at the most inopportune times, Favre messed with the front office in Green Bay. Year after year they made plans to move forward knowing ultimately there would be a day when Favre actually did what he said he was going to do.  

When it happened again this season they'd had enough. And despite the fact they were dead nuts right in moving on without #4 they still couldn't win. Not when Brett was on TV bitching about respect. Not when Brett was giving interviews to his bastard half-brother Peter King every 12 minutes about being so conflicted and confused and working the Favre martyr machine to perfection. The Packers were screwed either way. They could keep the icon and potentially forever mind-screw Aaron Rodgers into oblivion while treading water this season or they could let Favre go and suffer the slings and arrows of an irrational and emotional fan base that puts Favre just below cheese curds in terms of affection. 

Again, a horribly selfish move by a guy who knows better and could have handled the situation a lot better.  

How could he have handled it better? How about waiting until one month after the season and making your decision? Not right after your season comes to an emotional end and you've just spent 19 weeks getting the shit kicked out of you physically, emotionally and mentally. You're just punch drunk then. No shit that you can't see yourself going through it all again. Of course you think you've had enough. Do yourself and your organization a favor and make a rational decision when emotions and pain aren't driving them. 

I hate the Red Sox. If news came down that a ‘Poseidon Adventure' sized wave had wiped out Fenway, Boston and all of their teams I'd grab a beer and turn on the ‘Family Guy' when the report ended. Wouldn't care two minutes later.  As for the Packers? Who cares. Ambivalence rules. But those teams did nothing to deserve the fisting they took from these two arrogant, egomaniacs.  

So let's call a spade a spade here. It doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things nor does it mean anything outside of what Casey Coleman used to call ‘The Candy Store of Life (sports)'. But these were despicable acts by a couple of despicable individuals who thought nothing about the fans, their organizations, their teammates or their legacies. This went way beyond the ‘this is just business' credo these guys live by. 

Over a two or three week period these guys set the bar at a new low when it comes to arrogant, selfish athletes. 

Here's hoping they get all they deserve in life. May their next open wound be treated by a Browns physician in a Cleveland Clinic operating room.