Johan Santana, Like Mike Gundy, is a Man

Johan Santana didn't want to leave the mound in the eighth inning Tuesday night. He told Jerry Manuel as much, when the manager came out to request the ball. “I’m a Man,” Santana told Manuel, repeatedly. Better to tell than to show, in this case.

"What he means by that, I don't know," Manuel later said.

How could he not know? Sure, we all made fun of Mike Gundy's "I'm a Man, I'm 40" monologue. But it turns out Gundy was not just a man but a very forward-thinking sort of man, and "I'm a Man!" has now entered the athletic lexicon as surely as "It is what it is." The meaning has nothing to do with man parts, although many Men are also "men," in a biological sense.

But "I'm a Man!" means more than that you use urinals at sporting events. It means you have spine. It means you have fortitude. It means you won't take any disrespect, from coaches or teammates or media members. A few demonstrations of acceptable usage, from the past few months:

I'm a Man, in the sense of not being a total limp-wristed coward who gets scared by CSI re-runs

"Man, I'm a Man, you know?" Carlos Zambrano said last month, when discussing his '07 run-in with Michael Barrett. "If somebody comes to me and tries to beat me up, I have to respond, you know? Nobody likes to get beat up, you know? ... And anybody here, any Man here will respond. Am I right? Nobody likes to be hit. Nobody likes to be fired up. Nobody. As a Man you don't like to be pushed up or you don't like to be, you don't like somebody to kick your butt. You will respond as a Man."

I'm a Man, in the sense of not wanting to expose my nakedness to another man, especially one with a pen and notebook that could be used for sketching

"I'm a Man," Derek Fisher said, when T.J. Simers tried to interview him last month. "You don't address me. You don't wait until I'm done dressing. ... You should have known better."

I'm a Man, in the sense of having an attention span long enough to sit through an NBA regular season game

"I'm a Man," Mark Blount said earlier this year, when asked about being consigned to the bench. "I come to do my job -- [I've got] nothing to say about it being difficult. I'm not weak -- I'm strong mentally and physically."

I'm a Man, in the sense of refusing to donate my labor to educational institutions

"That's why I'm not a teenager anymore," C.J. Spiller said when he declared for the NFL. "I'm a Man, and you have to make Man decisions."

I'm a Man, in the sense of having survived an interminable length of time on this thing called earth

"I said, 'Coach Starr, I understand you have a problem with Blake Guymon's dad," a South Dakota football parent told the team's coach. "I'm his dad. I'm standing right here. I'm a Man. I'd appreciate it if you quit picking on a 16-year-old boy and come over here and tell me yourself what the problem is.' "

As for Santana, he was asked after the game about his three-word entrance into the world of Gundyhood.

"That situation right there, I just told him that I feel good," Santana said. "And I told him that I’m a Man, you know? That’s what I was doing."

For more of Dan Steinberg, visit his blog with The Washington Post, D.C. Sports Bog.

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