Theo Epstein again has proved how smart he is. This time he cured Boston of cancer.

Manny Ramirez had to go. It's obvious the great clown had become a malignant fool. He had to be cut out of the Red Sox clubhouse. Now, right now. Not later. The 2008 season hung on Manny's dead weight.

Minutes before the trade deadline yesterday, the Red Sox sent Ramirez to the only place in the world where a jackass can become "Jackass: The Movie." They sent him to Hollywood.

To L.A., to the land where Joe Torre, the great sage, can tell us how the Dodgers could never pass up a chance at a hitter as grand as Manny.

And there in the land where phoniness is next to godliness — soothed by Torre's patient managerial hand — Manny will hit the cover off the ball the next two months just as surely as his apologists will knock the cover off the truth.

The truth, of course, is Manny did it all for the money. Whether he listened to his agent Scott Boras because he's not smart enough to do otherwise or he ignored Boras and listened to himself because he's sure his is the path to a $100 million deal, well, that stuff matters only to those who look to paint the final brush strokes on Manny's Boston legacy.

What matters is that Bozo suddenly had become a loud, ugly tumor. He kicked. He screamed. He staged a sit-down strike. He faked a knee injury.

Even as late as Saturday, it looked impractical to trade Manny before the deadline. The best course seemed to be to hold on to him, calm the waters and convince him that the best way to a big winter payday was a productive finish. But it grew obvious this no longer was the idiot savant at play. This was the idiot at work. With greed as his guide, Manny kept pushing.

He claimed he was as tired of the Red Sox as they were tired of him. He said he would play anywhere, even Iraq, which would be kind of clever if Manny could find Iraq on a map or, as Jim Donaldson of the Providence Journal pointed out, bothered to join his teammates for a visit to wounded Iraq vets at Walter Reed Hospital during their trip to the White House.

And there he was the other night holding up a sign in the dugout about a trade that would send him to Green Bay for Brett Favre. In the past, folks would have chuckled at the hi-jinks. Not anymore.

"The Red Sox don't deserve a player like me," Manny told ESPN Deportes on Wednesday.

Finally, he was right about something.

The Red Sox didn't deserve a guy who quits on a team. They didn't deserve a guy who would throw down a 64-year-old traveling secretary over a ticket allotment. They didn't deserve a guy who would pick a fight with a teammate in the dugout. They didn't deserve a guy who would pull himself out of the lineup before a series with the Yankees with a bogus injury. They didn't deserve a guy who would take longer to get down to first base than Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg did to get around the world.

No team deserves such a player.

He had the temerity to call his bosses backstabbers after they had coddled him, earning a rebuke from owner John Henry. Manny's response was to lie down like a dog. The guy gets $20 million a year and he went bowwow.

It was despicable.

And if you saw the 9-2 loss to the Angels Wednesday, you could begin to believe there was something wrong. He wasn't the benign clown anymore. The drama was beginning to take its toll. Whether he jaked a knee injury as he did in 2006 or whatever, it was a roll of the dice whether the guy would expend less energy than Spicoli did in the classroom in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Clubhouse tumult would have grown.

Enough became too much. The cancer had to go, and Theo made it disappear.

The Dodgers, who have a shot to win the feeble NL West, have to be happy. The Red Sox are paying off the final $7 million of Manny's contract. Needing pop in the middle of the lineup, L.A. effectively gets a free-Manny trial period before deciding whether to sign him as a free agent. After the Marlins backed out, it grew apparent the Red Sox would have to pay more to get rid of Ramirez. They added Craig Hansen and Brandon Moss to get Pittsburgh to give them Jason Bay. The Pirates made out fine.

Bay is 29, seven years younger than Manny. Bay is making $6 million this year and $7.5 million next, light years from Manny's $20 million per. Bay has some strong numbers. He's also not Manny in his prime. Yet until we see him under the microscope of September, October, against the Yankees, etc., we will make no concrete assessment of Bay in his prime.

Some folks won't like that the Sox had to give up Hansen and Moss. Others won't like the fact the Sox didn't get short-term bullpen and long-term catching help. The Red Sox aren't as good today as they were yesterday. Yet in the end, Theo did what he had to do.

Look, there will be a day to pay tribute to Manny for his contributions over eight years. There will be a day to honor him as one of the most productive right-handed hitters in history.

This isn't the day.

He tried to ruin the 2008 season. He quit.

The day Manny quits hitting is the day he no longer will be able to hold people hostage with his talent. Until that day, he won't grow up.

But that's Manny's problem.

The Red Sox finally solved theirs.