Not looking to stir the pot here like the local media did after David Ortiz filmed a commercial in New York a few weeks back, but Manny Ramirez did – in fact – leave all of his cares, worries and five game losing streaks behind when he went down to Bristol, CT to film two ESPN commercials yesterday. It should also be mentioned that a number of Sox players took part in a Tim Wakefield golf event that also took place yesterday, so to me it's no big whoop.



The people I spoke with at ESPN wouldn’t reveal the actual nature of the ESPN spots featuring Manny Being Manny, but – shock of all shocks – one thing I did learn was that Ramirez was actually on time for the ESPN folks.
I don’t see anything wrong with either Ortiz or Ramirez choosing to shoot commercials on their off days, as long as their commercials show a little better use of thespian skills than Dustin Pedroia’s woeful Sullivan Tire attempts from spring training.

Here are some quick facts about Manny’s trip to the Worldwide Leader yesterday, courtesy of the folks at ESPN communications:

MANNY DETAILS
*the spots were filmed on Monday at ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn.

*Manny was part of a shoot for two upcoming commercials for ESPN’s “This is SportsCenter” on-air promotional campaign.

*SportsCenter anchors Jay Harris, Karl Ravech and Boston’s own Steve Levy were also featured in the sports.

*Spots will run at some point during the 2008 season.

*“Manny arrived right on time and was thoroughly professional throughout the shoot,” said Seth Ader, ESPN senior director of ESPN Marketing. “He worked well with our anchors, and proved to be an excellent actor. To steal a phrase describing another baseball slugger, Manny was a ‘Natural.’”

A couple of other things:

A quick shout out to the new NECN sports blog at www.bostonscore.com that seems to be a team effort from everyone involved over there, and includes musings from my man Mike Giardi and liveshot online reports from weekday anchor Chris Collins.

In a rare, refined moment within the walls of Hacks with Haggs, there’s also an interesting ongoing exhibit in Scituate by artist Vcevy Strekalovsky, and below I've included some of the paintings that might speak to the art critics within Red Sox Nation. Love the painting on the far right, but they're priced in the thousands...so I'll have to wait until my art sensibilities gain a little more refinement before I drop that kind of coin.