Manny purposely K'd vs Yankees to protest own team?

[neoforce]

Manny did lift the bat onto his shoulder. In fact, he nearly swung at the Rivera's perfect pitch.

I'm a die hard Yankee fan, and in no way a Manny fan. But I have to say, I'm with mweir on this one. I remember watching it live, and thinking Manny was just fooled. Looking at the last pitch on gameday video and it does look like he was going to swing at the third pitch and then held up.

But it is also interesting to to look at gameday for the pitch selection that inning. It was a six pitch inning for Mo:
Casey: 93MPH fastball, base hit
Crisp: 93MPH fastball bunt
Varitek, 93MPH fastball, soft ground out
Manny: 3 straight changeups. 75MPH, 75MPH, 83MPH

When is the last time you saw Mo throw three straight changeups? I think he was fooled

[mweir145]

By all accounts I've heard over the last 8 years, Manny is one of the hardest working guys on the team in terms of preparation (for hitting anyhow) and is generally liked by most of his teammates. That to me has nothing to do with the possibility that he struck out on purpose - I'm not positive he did, but I think there's a very good chance he did based on his other antics.

And I don't. Especially after I watched the pitch he struck out on.

The amount of at bats are few and far between where an ump is going to call a third strike looking on an 0 - 2 count to Manny Ramirez. I'm not sure this has been mentioned yet.

I think some here would rather defend ridiculous claims that don't have any basis in fact than think about things logically like that.

[acsguitar]

Manny still is probably 1 of the top 5 most feared hitters in baseball. I'd let him fake an AB once in a while