Red Sox legend Manny Ramirez is ready to return to Major League Baseball.
No, this is not the latest chapter of ‘Manny Being Manny’ and attempting a big league comeback at 53 years old, as fun as that would be. (I still think he could pop 20 or so over the Monster if you give him a full season, but I digress.) It’s instead Ramirez making it known that he’s ready to jump into the coaching ranks, and share his all-world insight as one of the most methodical hitters in the game’s history, so long as there’s a team out there willing to give him the chance.
“He wants to bring his greatness to teach the young guys,” Hector Zepeda, the agent for Ramirez, told the New York Post’s Jon Heyman on Thursday.
For what it’s worth, this is not something that’s come out of nowhere for the 12-time All Star and nine-time Silver Slugger. This is actually Manny’s second pitch to MLB teams this year alone, with Ramirez telling Hector Gomez back in May that he was ready to step into coaching. But this approach is certainly different in the sense that it’s Ramirez and his camp sending out feelers to any and every team in the MLB in search of his next chapter in the baseball world.
Last month, Ramirez spoke openly about his desire to coach during an appearance on Foul Territory, and even revealed that he had brief conversations with the Red Sox about returning to the franchise in a coaching capacity.
“I can teach [hitting], I just need the opportunity,” Ramirez said during the appearance. “To be honest, I spoke to Boston last year. We were talking a little bit, and I know they hired a guy from Driveline. We were talking, but then we never got back, you know, like to getting serious about it, so they never got back to me, so I never went back to them to see if it was really an opportunity.”