Adam Dobb thought he was being punked.

The email in his inbox had to be a joke. A 48-year-old Major League Baseball legend wanting to play professionally in a country he had never been to? It had to be a prank being pulled on Dobb, a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan and owner of the Sydney Blue Sox of the Australian Baseball League.

It wasn’t: Manny Ramirez really did want to play Down Under. The 12-time All-Star had been working with high schoolers and liked the look of his swing, so when Ramirez’s agent called to ask if he wanted to play on the other side of the world, he simply responded, “Yeah, why not?”

It wasn’t long after Dobb received the initial email over the summer that Sydney had Ramirez’s signature on a one-year deal — with a club option that Ramirez’s agent insisted upon. Ramirez did have another request: that Sydney not be allowed to trade him to other A.B.L. teams. The Blue Sox happily obliged.

“Hmm, let me think about that,” Dobb said with a laugh during a Zoom interview, recalling his thoughts at the time. “All right, I won’t trade Manny.”

Source: New York Times

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