Hanley Ramirez paying Braves manager back for tough love
Vincent Bonsignore follows the Los Angeles Dodgers for the Los Angeles Daily News. This article appears in today's edition.
It's funny how the twists and turns of baseball can sometimes intersect at the oddest places, or how a formerly frowned-upon star can rehabilitate himself on a stage in which a former teacher has a front row seat to observe the transformation.
But with each blast off the extraordinarily hot bat of Hanley Ramirez on Sunday to help inch the Dodgers one step closer to disposing the Atlanta Braves in the National League Division Series, it's impossible not to remember his former life under the manager in the opposing dugout.
Or how Fredi Gonzalez once tried to save Ramirez from himself, and how the belated result of that effort may soon mean the end of the Braves' season.
It seems like a lifetime ago when the petulance of Ramirez ran into the brick wall that is the respect Gonzalez has for doing things correctly on the baseball field.
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