He's The Manny

This is a travelogue, an account of a place as mysterious as Machu Picchu, only less traveled to. It's a place without any signs of worry or tension, with a feeling of weightlessness. It's a world Kodachrome-rich with laughter, gullibility, hair by Crayola, a swing straight from the baseball gods on their best day, and the occasional $40,000 in greenbacks left lying in the glove compartment of a car as casually as a road map. It's the world of Cleveland Indians rightfielder Manny Ramirez.

El Muchacho (the Boy) is what Boston Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez calls his fellow Dominican. "Manny is a little kid," says Martinez, who, at 28, is all of seven months older than Ramirez. "He's off in his own little world. He's in la-la-land."

Says Indians catcher Sandy Alomar, "Manny never gets upset. The rest of us grind and fight ourselves. Manny never worries. If he doesn't get a hit, he thinks, No problem—next at bat I'll get one. It's the perfect attitude, but you can only have it when you're as good as he is."

Ramirez is the greatest RBI machine since Jimmie Foxx and, based on a career slugging percentage of .589 through Sunday, the most prolific slugger today this side of Mark McGwire. He's also the biggest reason that Cleveland, a monument of mediocrity while Ramirez spent six weeks in the first half of the season on the disabled list, had ridden a second-half resurgence to be one game behind the Oakland A's in the wild-card race with a week left in the season. Ramirez was leading the American League in slugging percentage (.683) for a second straight year, was ranked third in on-base percentage (.462), had reached base in 49 consecutive games until the streak was snapped in a 9-0 loss on Sunday to the Kansas City Royals and, despite his lengthy absence, had the Triple Crown category numbers of an MVP candidate (.351,33 homers and 112 RBIs).

Having in late July rejected a five-year, $75 million offer to stay in Cleveland, Ramirez appears bound for free agency after this season. Tougher to read than Sanskrit, Ramirez has his teammates and the Indians' front office baffled about what he might do. "He doesn't say much to us, so I don't know what he's thinking about it," shortstop Omar Vizquel says.

Chaplin and Marceau have left a larger recorded oral history than Ramirez. Our journey won't be easy. "You want to talk to Manny? Ha!" Alomar says with a laugh. "Good luck!"

The best place to begin is the 24 square feet of rectangular space owned and operated by Manuel Aristides Ramirez. It's more commonly known as the batter's box. Ramirez is the picture of relaxation here. His pants, having no elastic in the legs, slouch to his shoe tops, making him look as if he's a kid wearing his big brother's pajamas. Sometimes the lining of his back pocket flaps inside out from his pants, as if a slingshot, a bullfrog and a few bottle caps have just tumbled out. His shirt is unbuttoned at the top, cut open on the inside seam of the sleeves and usually partly untucked. His most recent hair color approximates that of goldenrod.

Ramirez holds the bat with his hands split apart by about half an inch. He has a natural opposite-field stroke with which he hits the ball to rightfield like a left-handed pull hitter: with tremendous loft and carry. He glides into pitches with a rhythmic, almost balletic shift of his weight from his back leg to his front. His exceedingly quick bat has made him the best in baseball at turning on inside fastballs.

"What's amazing is that Manny looks exactly the same [hitting] as when I saw him in high school," says J.P. Ricciardi, director of player personnel for the A's. Ricciardi watched Ramirez, who had emigrated with his family to New York City from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic when he was 13 years old, at Manhattan's George Washington High in 1991. Says Colorado Rockies executive vice president Dan O'Dowd, formerly vice president of baseball operations and assistant general manager of the Indians, "He's one of the most gifted hitters I've ever seen. He hits the ball to right center so well, and he kills the fastball middle in. His offensive abilities are Hall of Fame caliber."

Ramirez went out of the lineup on May 30 with a strained left hamstring. The Indians were 19-20 without him. He came back on July 13, shortly after team owner Larry Dolan wondered aloud when he might see his rightfielder play again. (Ramirez said the proximity of his return to Dolan's comment was coincidental.) Cleveland, even with Ramirez sidelined again briefly in August, has been the second-best team in the American League ever since, having gone 40-28 through Sunday. Ramirez hit .375 with 20 home runs and 65 RBIs during that span.