Ramírez Traded to Dodgers

White Sox Acquire Griffey From Reds

Eleven-hundred eighteen career home runs, belonging to two likely Hall of Famers, were dealt yesterday on an extraordinary trade-deadline afternoon that altered playoff races in both leagues, created odd bedfellows of longtime rivals and ended the stormy relationship between the defending World Series champions and their mercurial cleanup hitter at a critical juncture in the season.

The day's biggest blockbuster came just minutes before the 4 p.m. deadline, when the Boston Red Sox sent slugger Manny Ramírez across the country to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-way trade that brought outfielder Jason Bay to Boston and sent a foursome of prospects to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Ramírez, 36, joins a Dodgers team managed by Joe Torre, who experienced Ramírez's talent firsthand for 12 years as manager of the rival New York Yankees, and could tip the balance of power in the National League West to Los Angeles from the Arizona Diamondbacks -- who lead the Dodgers by two games but who stood pat at the deadline, save for their trade last week for Washington Nationals reliever Jon Rauch.

"When a player like Manny becomes available, I don't think there's a manager in baseball who wouldn't say they're interested," Torre told reporters. "It was something that happened very quickly, obviously."

The Red Sox, meantime, rid themselves of both an essential part of their two championship teams this decade and a divisive figure who this season morphed from a fun-loving man-child to a petulant free-agent-in-waiting who broke fundamental clubhouse law by sitting out games with injuries of questionable authenticity.

"At the end of the day, you're taking the field with a guy who doesn't want to play with you, who doesn't want to be there," veteran Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling told Boston radio station WEEI. "It's obvious from anything you see or hear he doesn't want to be here. . . . Leaving him here [would have been] a problem because you don't know what you're going to get."

And Ramírez, an 11-time all-star, was only the second-most accomplished slugger traded yesterday, as earlier in the day, the American League Central-leading Chicago White Sox made an under-the-radar move to grab outfielder Ken Griffey Jr. from the Cincinnati Reds for two mid-level prospects.

Griffey, 38 and clearly in the deep autumn of his career, is the majors' active leader in career home runs, with 608 -- Ramírez is fifth, with 510 -- and could become the White Sox' everyday starter in center field, a position he last played regularly in 2006. However, he might also wind up seeing time as designated hitter, with regular DH Jim Thome moving to first base in place of struggling veteran Paul Konerko.

"I think he was a little surprised," Reds General Manager Walt Jocketty told reporters, referring to the conversation in which he presented Griffey, whose tenure in Cincinnati afforded him the right to approve any trade, with the trade scenario. "But he thought about it [and] talked to his family. It's a good opportunity [for him]. They pursued him and went after him."

Still, in terms of impact, the Griffey trade was nowhere near that of Ramírez, who at one point yesterday morning appeared to be heading to the low-budget Florida Marlins in a three-way deal that would have been structured similarly to the one that ultimately went down with the Dodgers, until the Marlins, Pirates and Red Sox failed to come to an agreement on the prospects the Marlins would have had to give up.

To make the trade happen, the Red Sox -- three games behind first-place Tampa Bay in the AL East -- not only gave up Ramírez, but also kicked in $7 million to cover the balance of Ramírez's $20 million salary, plus two young players -- relief pitcher Craig Hansen and outfielder Brandon Moss.

In return, they got Bay, a former Montreal Expos prospect and the 2004 NL rookie of the year, who will slide seamlessly into Ramírez's left field position and whose 2008 production (.282 batting average, 22 homers, 64 RBI) is comparable to that of Ramírez (.299, 20, 68).

Perhaps most significantly from the perspective of Red Sox Nation, Bay is nearly seven years younger than Ramírez, is under contract for next season at a very reasonable salary of $7.5 million and is, by all accounts, a model teammate and citizen.