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When your star player demands a trade to another organization, every team in professional sports attempts to meet that request. After all, who wants any part of a disgruntled veteran, not when the difference between winning and losing is as mush a matter of effort as it is talent.

But when that player is a flake, one who's standard moniker is "that is just Manny being Manny," an organization like the Red Sox may fail to find any truly viable suitors. Throw in the current contract that Ramirez has with the Sox, and well it appears Manny might just be in a Red Sox uniform again next year.

Certainly there a few interested takers, given that Boston placed Manny on waivers a year ago and there were not takers. Placed on waivers meant that any team could have claimed the star hitter and then activated him, required only to pay the current contract that Ramirez negotiated a scant five years ago.

One has to give the Sox outfielder's agent great credit for the package that he was able to get for Ramirez. First, the basics of the deal involved an eight-year, $160 million contract that will expire at the end of the 2008 season. But that tells only a small portion of the story - in fact under the current contract, the Red Sox's financial obligation to Ramirez will continue long into the future.

The $160 million deal breaks down into three separate financial components. First, Ramirez received a bonus of $16 million for signing with the Red Sox with the final $1 million payment of that sum due in 2006. Second, Manny signed for $113 million which was set to be paid out over the eight seasons of the basic contract.

Those two numbers, the signing bonus and the yearly paychecks, total just $129 million. There in lies the rub, the real basis for which Ramirez agent deserves phenomenal credit. The remaining $31 million is all deferred money - actually, that sum is also earning interest so the expected payout will be roughly $1 million more.

The deferred money is due in 2011, when Ramirez reaches the age of 39, and then continues until the year 2026, when Ramirez will be in his fifth year of eligibility for AARP membership. The deferred payments are to be paid in one lump sum, each July 1, that once a year for the 16-year period.

The deferrals consist of two basic components. The amount deferred from the first year of his contract on 2001 was $3 million - that amount will be paid out, one-sixteenth of it each year, beginning with that first year 2011. That payment figures to be about $187,500 per year for the period. The amount deferred from 2002 to 2008 was $4 million per year. That total yields $28 million which will again be paid out, one-sixteenth of it paid each year, for the period from 2011 to 2026. That of course yields another $1.75 million per year for the slugger during the seemingly early days of his well-deserved golden years.

Therefore, beginning at the age that most players are thinking about retirement, whether Ramirez is still playing or relaxing in his Ritz penthouse suite, the flakiest slugger in the game will receive roughly $1.94 million every year until he turns 54 years of age.

Unloading a man who may not always be the best team player, one who's head is often rumored to be anywhere but focused on the game being played at the moment, is always a challenge. But unloading Ramirez this offseason has the added contract burden for the taker of $57 million in salary for three years and another $12 million in deferred payments for the sixteen year period, or about $750,000 a year.

It is no wonder that the Red Sox have had difficulty finding a team willing to take on the player many call one of the best right-handed hitters in the game. In fact, look for Ramirez to be in Boston for 2006 at least, if not for the duration of the 8 year contract he signed with the Red Sox.

But that said, Ramirez and, even more so, his agent, deserve credit for negotiating a contract that will have the slugger on easy street financially long after his playing days are over.