You know how we just hate it when rich folk whine about money. So we know you won't be surprised when you learn who our choice for Whiner of the Week is.

It's Manny Ramirez, who took advantage of the All-Star break to whine to The Boston Herald about how horribly he's being treated by Boston Red Sox management.

Manny's is approaching the option years of his contract. In his case, the team has the option of keeping him for two more years at his current pay of $20 million per or giving him his freedom. But the team is waiting until the end of the year to tell him what it intends to do.

It's too much for the poor fellow. Here he is busting his hump every day on the field hitting baseballs and even catching one occasionally, and the team is forcing him to worry about how he's going to pay the rent next year.

He accused the team of double-dealing with him, a charge that didn't go down well with Sox owner John Henry. His teammates seemed unimpressed, and the fans didn't seem overly concerned; they expect these sorts of outbursts from Manny.

Just the same, it's world-class whining. The guy's got about as good a life as anyone could wish for. If he wants to keep it going, go out there and do the job and quit whimpering.

Dishonorable mentions:

Jack Nicklaus
As much as we admire what the Golden Bear did on the golf course, we're really tired of his whining about how much better everything was when he was ruling golf. This week, he whined at the British Open that the modern players don't care about winning as much as he did because they make too much money. "If they don't win, they still walk home with a big check," Nicklaus said. "When we played golf, it wasn't to make a living. It was to make a name for yourself so you could make a living."

We're thinking Nicklaus should spend a weekend locked in a room with Manny.

Danica Patrick
While practicing for a race at Mid-Ohio, Patrick got upset with another woman driver, rookie Milka Duno. So she got out of her car in pit road and huffed off to Duno's pit to call her names and straighten her out. Duno threw a towel at the woman who's supposed to be her hero. We love what Patrick has done for racing, but she's done this before, and it's starting to get annoying.

Jonathan Papelbon
Talking to The New York Daily News before the All-Star game, the Boston closer delivered a quote about his desire to finish the game that he had to know could be twisted to make it sound as if he didn't think Mariano Rivera should be on Yankee Stadium's mound at the end of the game. Naturally, the Daily News did the requisite twisting and the idiot fans directed their invective at Papelbon's pregnant wife. Instead of blaming himself for saying something dumb, the pitcher whined about the tabloid press, which is like yelling at a skunk for smelling bad.

New York Giants
With training camp about the open, we learn that the Giants are getting incentive for the upcoming season by pretending that they're not getting any respect from the media. Instead, everybody's writing about Dallas and Tony Romo and Miami and Bill Parcells and New England and Bill Belichick. How lame can they get?

Tonya Harding
In a big piece in Newsweek, the woman who went from the trailer park to the skating rink and back whined that her bad reputation isnt her fault and that shes really a good person. The drinking and assault incidents and all the rest apparently didn't really happen or maybe we're not supposed to think they did. Anyway, we found ourselves wondering if we really cared and decided we didn't.

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