PHOENIX — Manny Ramirez will be back in Los Angeles Monday to renew his love affair with the city, but before his career ends he hopes to be reunited with his first love: the Cleveland Indians. “I would like to play for Cleveland one more time, to go back where I started,” said Ramirez, with the Dodgers playing their home opener Monday against the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium. “I have so many good memories there, why not? “I think to go back where you started is everyone’s dream.” Ramirez, 37, who spent the first 10 years of his career in the Indians organization, shared his sentiments this spring with Chicago White Sox DH Jim Thome…”Me and Thome back in Cleveland?” Ramirez said. “That would be sweet. “I love L.A. I really do. But the way the city responded to me, it reminded me a lot of how it was in Cleveland.”

And so it begins.  No doubt some Dodger fans and members of the organization are scratching their heads and thinking this doesn’t make any sense and wondering why Manny would take $45 million of Frank McCourt’s money and two weeks later be talking about how he’d be happier somewhere else.  Well welcome to our world.  We went through a period like this, too.  We called it “the 2000s.”  Next on Manny’s agenda is to say he’s not happy in LA.  Then he’ll deny he ever said it.  Followed by a pulled hammy that lasts three days during a crucial weekend series.  Followed by him coming back on the field, embracing LA fans and saying this is the only place he ever wants to play.  Next will be an interview with ESPN Desportes where he says he hates the baseball-obsessed fishbowl that is Los Angeles and and how underpaid he is and that he wants to be traded to Cleveland.  The question isn’t why Manny says this shit, the question is why anyone associated with the Dodgers would be surprised he says it.