Manny: Torn Meniscus?

Will Carroll, Baseball Prospectus, writes that Manny Ramirez

is taking a disproportionate amount of heat for missing the game, even getting openly questioned on [Saturday]'s Fox telecast. Tim McCarver said the worst thing about his knee injury was "remembering which leg to limp with." It's easy to say that Ramirez is faking an injury, but almost as easy to actually check on the injury. Ramirez is suffering from a small tear in the medial meniscus of his right knee. It's an injury he can play with, but one that can "grind," a bone-on-bone situation that is unpredictable and painful. ...

Gordon Edes -- while stating that "Carroll has a solid reputation in the industry for his reports on player injuries" -- notes:

Industry sources, both with direct knowledge of Ramirez's condition, had conflicting reactions [to the report.] ...

One source, although not offering direct confirmation of Carroll's report, acknowledged some degree of accuracy. Another source, however, said neither the Red Sox medical staff nor an outside entity have administered an MRI to Ramirez and have not indicated they intend to do so. Without an MRI, the source said, the Sox would only be guessing there is a tear.

Edes spoke with Jeffrey Dugas, an orthopedic surgeon in Alabama and associate of noted orthopedist James Andrews, who said that an MRI is the "gold-standard test" for determining a meniscus tear. Dugas:

But even if an MRI showed a tear, unless it clearly and significantly keeps a player from performing, there's no reason to do anything with it. If he can play his position, hit, run on it, he can continue to play. An MRI is such a sensitive test, sometimes you can overread it.

Bud Selig either didn't know about the report or didn't care. He said it was "beyond my comprehension" why Manny would not make the trip to Pittsburgh, adding

The only thing I want to say in all fairness is that he's the only player we had that problem with this year. Everybody else has been terrific. Tommy Glavine does the right thing. He comes anyway. Of course he can't pitch, but he comes anyway. And Reyes is also here and he can't (play). But he's here. ... I need a vacation too, but ...

More later...