Manny Still Being Manny....and a savior?

Throwing you a bender because I just thought you should know...

It is the heart of baseball season now, so it seemed like a good time to check in on Manny Ramirez and see how one of the most interesting careers of all time was coming along. What, you thought his career was over? You thought he was done playing? Hardly! This baseball savant continues to play and has maybe even taken on the greatest role and responsibility of his entire career!

Just when you thought Ramirez had finally washed out and could no longer play the sport professionally, http://newkssportsshorts.blogspot.com/2012/06/are-gray-dreadlocks-done.html , he signs on to play with the EDA Rhinos of the Chinese Professional Baseball League.

Based on not being able to land a Major League job, and not even being able to find an organization that would give him a chance to work back up through the minors, Manny went looking overseas. He landed a few offers, but only one came with the added bonus of being responsible for saving the entire league from becoming defunct.

For those of you not familiar with the CPBL, let me provide some quick background and you can decide if Manny is the right man for the job.

A devoted baseball fan named Hung Teng-sheng, pronounced "Hank", formed his own team back in 1984, and paid its players professional level wages. As chairman of the Brother Hotel in Taiwan, he was able to pay players, name the team the Brother Elephants and dream of building it all into something much larger. He aspired to build a stadium and form a complete league within five years.

Seemed crazy, and slightly delayed, but in 1990, his Elephants took the field in the first game to officially start the inaugural season for the CPBL. The league had just four teams but did well and prospered throughout the early 90's. Unfortunately, in 1996, four players for the Elephants were abducted at gunpoint by local thugs who were part of the Chinese Mob that had lost huge money betting on a game. Then in 1997, a game fixing scandal hit the league as all but two players on the Chinese Times Eagles were implicated, then found guilty of throwing contests in order to appease the same Chinese Mob.

This was a tragedy for the small league and when attendance plummeted, the CPBL was all but out of business. A new rival league, the Taiwan Major League, was formed in order to replace the shamed original group of teams. The two leagues merged in 2003. Incredibly, gambling scandals again took down the league, with many teams becoming defunct, and it is back to where it started, a four team league.

Enter Manny Ramirez of the Rhinos, now on board to bring star power and credibility (Manny?) back to the Brother Elephants, Lamigo Monkeys and Uni-President 7-Eleven Lions of the CPBL. His first hit in the league was occasion for having the ball removed from play, and his first home run came in a game where the team set a record for single game attendance for a regular season game.

This is a pure hitter, currently batting .347 and leading the league with five homers, hoping to prove worthy of one more chance in the big leagues. To remind you he is a pure hitter, check out his base running below and remember, "Manny Being Manny" is a universal language! Now, if he can save the CPBL, he will have accomplished more than he ever could of in the Major Leagues.

All this because I know more about nothing...