TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Slugger Manny Ramirez
is leaving Taiwanese team The Rhinos after just 49 games because the
club says he misses his family in New York.
The Rhinos said it tried to keep the
12-time All-Star in Taiwan, including raising his monthly pay to almost
$60,000 from $25,000.
Ramirez signed to play the
March-to-November season with the Rhinos in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan.
The team's website said the 41-year-old will depart Taiwan on Friday.
Ramirez hit .352 with eight home runs and 43 RBIs.
Rhinos manager Lee Chia-fan wasn't aware of Ramirez's future plans.
"We regarded highly of the
contributions he has made here," the Rhinos said. "Although he is
leaving us, he expressed the wish for the younger Rhino players to keep
playing well."
Ramirez played 19 big league seasons
and was selected MVP of the 2004 World Series, when the Red Sox won
their first title since 1918.
His last major league appearance was with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2011.
In an interview with local TVBS Cable
Station from Kaohsiung, an unidentified Ramirez relative dismissed
reports that the slugger will join Japan's professional team Chiba Lotte
Marines, saying he only wanted to rejoin his family.
Taiwan's professional baseball league
consists of four teams, having been whittled down from a high of nine in
2008 amid a series of bribery and game-fixing scandals.
Ramirez was suspended for 50 games
early in the 2009 season with the Los Angeles Dodgers after testing
positive for human chorionic gonadotropin, a banned female fertility
drug popular among steroid users because it can mitigate the side
effects of ending a cycle of the drugs.
Ramirez retired in April 2011 after
testing positive for elevated testosterone, but said after the season
that he wanted to play again. Major League Baseball and the players'
union agreed he would serve a 50-game suspension, and Ramirez played in
the minors for Oakland in 2012 before asking for his release in June.
