Manny Ramirez: Former MLB Slugger Needs To Spare Baseball Fans and Stay Retired

Well, that didn't last long.

After formally announcing his retirement in the face of a 100-game, performance-enhancing-drug-related suspension earlier this season, Manny Ramirez wants to return to Major League Baseball.

According to ESPN.com, after being disqualified from playing in the Dominican winter league due to being on the MLB's inactive list, Ramirez applied for reinstatement into the MLB.

If Ramirez is reinstated, he will have to serve the 100-game suspension upon signing with a team. If no MLB team signs him, Ramirez will play in his native Dominican Republic or Japan.

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"I would comply with my pending sanction and I would be available for any major league team," Ramirez told ESPNdeportes.com's Enrique Rojas via telephone from Miami. "I already informed (agent) Scott Boras of my decision to return and begin the process.

"If any team wants to sign me, I would play. If no one does, I would look to play in Japan or any other place. I was not prepared for retirement."

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Ramirez may not have been prepared for retirement, but retirement was certainly ready for him. I'm not one of those people who incessantly bashes athletes like Brett Favre who waffle on the subject of retirement, provided that player can still play effectively.

Over Ramirez's final season or so, it became quite apparent that he had little left, though. Ramirez bounced around from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Chicago White Sox and finally the Tampa Bay Rays, and he was nothing more than a shell of his former self.

Manny played in just 90 games in 2010 and finished with only nine home runs and 42 RBI. The Rays decided to take a chance on him this past offseason, but he was hitting just .059 in five games before retiring rather than facing a 100-game suspension.

Make no mistake, Ramirez is one of the best right-handed power hitters in the history of baseball, but that particular version of Manny Ramirez no longer exists. Ramirez is now a troubled man who has been busted for performance-enhancing drugs on multiple occasions and was recently arrested for assaulting his wife.

A return to Major League Baseball would only serve to further tarnish Ramirez's reputation. His skills have greatly eroded; even if he does catch on with a team, he will be a non-factor. The more likely scenario is that nobody will be interested and he'll be made to look like a desperate fool for trying to make a comeback.

At this point, the best thing for all parties is for Ramirez to disappear into anonymity and allow the fans to remember him as a great player rather than a cheater. If he leaves now, that has a chance of happening; if not, he will simply continue to tarnish his legacy.