manny ramirez is in my hall of famer collection

he won't be voted in by the baseball writer's, but manny ramirez is a hall of famer to me. he has the numbers, and because he also has been a big part of my fandom and collecting experience, i've added him to my hall of famer collection with this card as his entry:

that's a 2024 topps five star autograph. here's the back:

ramirez put up hall of fame numbers over the course of his career. 555 home runs, 1,831 rbi, 2,574 hits plus 1,329 walks for a .411 obp and a .996 ops. those are big numbers for sure. of course, with manny, it's the performance enhancing drugs and failed tests that have kept him out of cooperstown. he was incredibly consistent between his 8 seasons in cleveland and 8 seasons in boston, and his second half in 2008 after joining the dodgers was absolutely incredible. he never won a regular season mvp award (was in the top six seven times) but he did win the 2004 world series mvp award.

i saw ramirez play once when he was still with cleveland (he went 0 for 4), but i most recall seeing him with my own two eyes during a series in boston in 2004. the dodgers were visiting for the first time since the 1916 world series and me and my siblings agreed to meet up in beantown. in the first game, ramirez made an error with two outs in the top of the ninth inning to allow the dodgers to score the game tying run. he was running in to make a catch and just botched it. no worries, as david ortiz delivered a walk-off single in the bottom of the frame. the next day, ramirez hit a two-run bomb over the monster in left. it was a true fenway moment for me.

i am sad to report that i did not see manny while he was with the dodgers, even though his arrival in 2008 rejuvenated the fan base and the success of that club with manny in the lineup directly led to me starting a blog on this date in 2008. yes, you can blame manny for all of my posts over the last 17 years.

as for the national baseball hall of fame, ramirez has one year left on the ballot, and he has never come close to being elected by the writers. he maxed out at 34.3% in his first appearance on the ballot and has been in the low 20% range the last couple of years. i hope that at some point, the eras committees acknowledge that the steroid era was a part of baseball's history and add the standouts of that era, like ramirez, to the hall. put a note on the plaque if you must, but to keep him and others out while some suspects are in is dumb.

here's another recent manny addition to my collection - his 2009 topps tribute black parallel

it's numbered to 99 on the back:

i still get a kick out of adding manny cards to my dodger collection, and i think i am pretty much down to parallels like this one.

as a reminder, you can see manny and the others enshrined in my hall of famer collection here.