Rangers sign Hanley Ramirez’s son.


The only highlights Hanley Ramirez had were in his hair.

The first day of the international signing period opened yesterday, and the Rangers nabbed twenty-two international players. One kid has the unfortunate name of Alex Rodriguez. But the kid getting the most attention is Hansel Ramirez, the seventeen-year-old son of former big leaguer Hanley Ramirez.

Hanley Ramirez won the National League Rookie of the Year award in 2006 as a shortstop for the then Florida Marlins. In 2009, he won the National League batting championship with a 3.42 average, finishing second in MVP voting. He had a good career with the Marlins, then signed with the Dodgers, and later the Red Sox, where he coasted and half-assed it to finish his career.

By the end of his time with the Red Sox, he was vilified for his lazy play and lack of hustle. Hansel’s signing reminds me of a story I have told a few times here, but is worth repeating.

In 2015, Hanley Ramirez signed a huge deal to play with the Red Sox. But, his lazy attitude was starting to catch up to him. He didn’t go after fly balls in left, he didn’t run out ground balls, he was a slob on the field. In late May of 2015, the Red Sox came to Arlington to play the Rangers. This is a team that finished in last the year before and was mired there that season. Ramirez became the poster boy for failure. I went to a one of the games in that series with a friend who was a huge Boston Red Sox fan. He had tickets three rows behind the Red Sox dugout in the old Ballpark in Arlington. These were good seats. We were squarely in Red Sox territory, surrounded by Boston fans.

Hanley Ramirez was the Red Sox starting left fielder that day. By the fifth inning, the Rangers were up 6-0. The Red Sox faithful were staring at another last-place team, which they might have been able to stomach except for the lackadaisical play of Ramirez in left, who let a few balls drop in front of him instead of running them down, which caused him to get enthusiastically booed by the Boston fans. To make matters worse, he was disrespecting the uniform by wearing it with the top three buttons undone.

When, in the top of the eighth inning, with David Ortiz at first and no outs, Ramirez hit a ground ball to third and, because he felt it beneath him to run hard, ended up being doubled off at first, the chorus of boos from the visiting Red Sox fans rained down on him. As he got a few feet from the dugout, I yelled, “Hey, Hanley, the only highlights you have this year are in your hair.” He had pretty hair.

He went into his dugout, just a few feet from us, came back out moment later with a security guard, then pointed up at me. Moments after that, a Rangers security guard informed me that I had to leave because I had insulted a player. I said, “Are you kidding me? Every fan in every ballpark in America yells at opposing players.” I was told the Rangers policy was, a fan can heckle the opposing team, but not a specific player. If that player objected, it was grounds for the fan to be asked to leave.

Then, something magical happened. Red Sox fans, in masse, came together to support a rival Rangers fan. Me. They told the security guard all I did was make fun of Ramirez’s hair, and that he was a lazy bum, and that he was a blight on the Boston name. When she realized she was facing an angry mob, she allowed me to stay but warned me not to yell at a specific player, only at a team in general.

That triggered the Red Sox fans to yell at their entire team in general. Two dozen fans started a loud, angry tirade against the Red Sox, how they were a disgrace to Boston, how they were an insult to the Boston Strong mantra that sprang up from the horrible Boston Marathon bombing two years prior. It was a long, loud, angry, passionate chorus of vitriol that caused former Rangers hero and then current Red Sox first baseman Mike Napoli to pop his head out of the dugout and address the angry mob with a, “Okay, we hear you. Enough already.”

If you know Red Sox fans, that was just throwing fuel on a fire. For the rest of the game, which didn’t last much longer, they were merciless on their team.

I left that day having a new-found respect for the passion of Red Sox fans, and a lack of respect for a player with skin so thin he couldn’t take a joke about the highlights in his hair. He had pretty hair.

A few years later, Boston released Ramirez because they felt he was expensive and underperforming. A headline from 2016 encapsulated Red Sox Nation’s disdain for Ramirez: “Pablo Sandoval Is Still Fat, Hanley Ramirez Is Still Lazy.”

His son is now a Ranger. Let’s hope he got his work ethic from someone other than his dad. And his hair stylist, too