Hanley Ramirez Got Off Easy

If you haven’t seen the highlights, last night Florida’s all-world shortstop Hanley Ramirez made a mockery of baseball.

In the bottom of the first inning of Florida’s 5-1 loss to Arizona, Ramirez fouled an Edwin Jackson offering off his foot. After composing himself, he proceeded to ground into an inning-ending double play, running down the line at less than full speed.

I have no real issue with that.

Ramirez was hobbled, no question. The ground ball was a routine play, there are tons of completely healthy major leaguers that would have given the same effort Ramirez did to get down the line. A minute and a half earlier, Ramirez had just slammed one off his foot. I get it, I’m not upset.

The problem happened in the top of the second.

After the D-backs put two on with no outs, Tony Abreu lifted a shallow fly ball to short left field. Ramirez charged after it, seemingly at full speed, but the ball dropped between he and LF Chris Coghlan. On the bouce, the ball careened off the leg of Ramirez, bouncing all the way to the left field corner.

Ramirez continued after the ball in a manner that could only be described as jogging. All the while, Diamondbacks raced around the bases, two runners scored and Abreu eventually wound up at third.

Click here to watch the video highlight. More outrage after the jump.

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Ramirez was removed after the inning and quickly went into the clubhouse. He left the ballpark without speaking to reporters. His manager, Fredi Gonzalez, had plenty to say about the lack of effort Ramirez gave on the play, however.

Like I said above, I know he had fouled a ball off his foot, but he stayed in the game. And if you are staying in the game, you had better be willing and able to put out the effort needed to help your team win.

I applaud Gonzalez for not trying to sugar-coat the incident, even leaving the door open for additional disciplinary action, but I still think Ramirez was let off the hook a bit.

The fact is that there was still no one out when that play ended, Ramirez stayed on the field for three more outs. If it were me running the Marlins, Ramirez would not have seen another pitch.

Now I’m not one for embarrassing a player ordinarily, but what Ramirez did was an embarrassment to his team, to his teammates, and to the game itself.

Ramirez should been handled the same way.

Make no mistake, I like Ramirez as a player. This rant has zero to do with his status as one of the game’s elite, it has nothing to do with the size of his paycheck. Only the size of his heart.

Ramirez made a selfish play and tanked on his team. There are no excuses for that. If he was hurt so badly that he couldn’t manage to run, an essential part of baseball, then he should have informed the training staff and removed himself from the game.

By staying out on the field, Ramirez was saying he was healthy enough to play, healthy enough to help his team, healthy enough to give a quality effort.

In jogging after a ball that wound up leading to three runs, Ramirez proved he was simply too selfish to do any of those things.

If you would like to hear what Ramirez had to say on the incident, he spoke with reporters this morning. Let’s just say he was less-than-understanding of the decision.

"It’s his team. He (Gonzalez) can do whatever he [expletive] wants.We got a lot of people dogging it after ground balls. They don’t apologize. That’s OK. He doesn’t understand that. He never played in the big leagues."

Hanley Ramirez might be a marquee player, but his comments, and his effort, lack a great deal of maturity.