Manny Ramirez enters Guardians' Hall of Fame, 'not in a rush' to Cooperstown - ESPN

CLEVELAND — Manny Ramirez pulled off his dark designer sunglasses, tugged at his Dolce & Gabbana tie and smiled widely.

Back in his element.

Manny being Manny.

«It's an honor to come back to the house that I built, the Jake,» Ramírez said during a news conference at Progressive Field, known as Jacobs Field when the slugger played in Cleveland. «I know they changed the name, but I'm happy to be back. I'm happy to be back in the city and the place that I grew up.»

One of best hitters in baseball history, and one of the game's biggest characters, Ramírez, who broke in with those powerhouse Indians teams in the 1990s, returned on Saturday to be inducted into the Guardians' Hall of Fame.

Ramirez, 51, was relaxed and wildly entertaining during a 16-minute session with reporters in which he touched on his playing career in Cleveland and Boston, his ambivalence toward being voted into baseball's Hall of Fame and his future.

«I'm going to play in Prague next year,» he claimed. «They saw me hitting BP (batting practice) and they said, 'Can you take some at-bats with us?' In Czechoslovakia, yes.»

With Ramírez, anything's possible.

Born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New York, he broke in with Cleveland in 1993 and it didn't take long for Ramirez to blossom into a perennial All-Star.

Blessed with quick hands, a keen batter's eye and ample power to all fields, Ramirez destroyed pitches and pitching staffs on the way to finishing with a career .312 average and 555 home runs, which ranks 15th all-time.

«He's one of the most gifted hitters I've ever seen,» said Guardians manager Terry Francona, who won two World Series titles with Ramirez in Boston. «It felt different when he got in that batter's box. It was different when he