PHILADELPHIA — “Hi!”

There you go. That was our conversation. Manny Ramirez, dressed in his No. 99 Dodger Blue was in lock-down mode when it came to media matters. The pause button definitely went on today.

It started when the clubhouse first opened and the Philly press was ready to pounce, looking for comments in regards to Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel and Ramirez’s thoughts on being reportedly pursued by Philly at the trade deadline.

“I don’t want to talk about Charlie,” he said, walking toward the trainer’s room. An hour or so later he was chatting it up with Manuel by the batting cage, laughing and joking with his former coach. On his way to the back of the clubhouse, Ramirez did stop to shake hands and give a quick how-dee-do with the lone Boston media rep. And there you have the extent of his perceived media obligation.

After six months of the accessible Manny, we are back to square one, although he might not have even said “hi” up until this year. Other than that, it looked like the same Ramirez, who was constantly seen joking with the likes of Angel Berroa and Mariano Duncan replacing old Sox friends Julio Lugo and Ino Guerrero.

Everybody else had no problem talking about Manny, including Dodgers manager Joe Torre, who was outstanding in waxing poetic about his new slugger.

I’ll be back with the thoughts of Torre, hitting coach Don Mattingly, Duncan, and others regarding Manny’s stint with LA, all of whom were fairly insightful. 

Be back in a bit …