Swing and a miss!
Manny Ramirez’s season as a player-coach with the Australian Baseball League’s Sydney Blue Sox is getting started, though it seems Manny being Manny isn’t something that translates down under.
In a video posted by Yankees hitting coach Rachel Balkovec — working with the Blue Sox this season — Ramirez shows being an international superstar doesn’t mean being known everywhere.
“Excuse me, nice hat, can I ask you a question?” Ramirez poses to a man wearing a Red Sox hat. “Who is your favorite player?”
“Are you serious?” the befuddled man responds, failing to identify the two-time World Series champ. “It’s my girlfriend.”
While Ramirez, the Red Sox Hall-of-Famer, took it all in stride, it wasn’t the only indignity the 2004 World Series MVP has had to face in Australia — and Balkovec doesn’t seem to be helping.
“Who’s your favorite player?” she asks a child wearing a Red Sox jersey awaiting a Ramirez autograph.
“David Ortiz!” the child answered, to Balkovec and Ramirez’s giggles.
There’s plenty of time for Ramirez, who last played MLB ball in 2011, to find his biggest fan on the continent ahead of the Blue Sox’s first game on Dec. 18. In the meantime, he and Balkovec will be tasked with helping develop a number a MLB prospects, including the Mets’ Adam Oller, Manny Rodriguez, Andrew Mitchell, Carlos Cortez and Francisco Alvarez.