Boston slugger Manny Ramirez hit his 500th home run on Saturday in Baltimore. I remember No. 1 quite well.

I was in my first job as a reporter/copy editor in suburban Cleveland, watching the game on TV, and Ramirez already was a guy we’d heard about for years. And Manny was already Manny, of course - he barely spoke English and was almost a savant when it came to hitting, but one of the worst outfielders ever seen.

He started in 1993 at Double-A and was called up to the also-ran Indians that September and played in the field in just one game. But in his second big-league game on Sept. 3, in Yankee Stadium, just down the street from where he grew up in Washington Heights, the 21-year-old designated hitter Ramirez launched his first two big-league homers into the left-field bleachers as a large group from his old neighborhood went bananas in the left-field bleachers. One of their own had made it, and was going to make it big. And he was going to take the Indians up with him.
Those were the only two homers Ramirez hit in 53 at-bats that September, but he cracked the Indians’ lineup the next spring and the rest is history. And while Ramirez has definitely earned his flaky reputation - he was known to leave large, uncashed paychecks in his locker in visiting clubhouses - he’s no dummy.