Manny Ramirez begins comeback with A's

PHOENIX -- Manny Ramirez will be 40 May 30, the day his suspension from baseball ends. It's also the day Ramirez will show whether the A's, the team infamous for not spending, made a wise decision when it offered him a $500,000 minor-league deal if he makes the big-league roster.

That would seem a given if his opening days in camp are an indication. "I have to show I can still play," Ramirez said Tuesday. "I haven't been in a game since last April."

But after Ramirez hit several batting practice homers, A's manager Bob Melvin had little doubt, saying, "He's doing all the same things he's always done."

What brought him to the downtrodden A's as a free agent is the question Ramirez answers with his own question: "Why everybody ask, 'Why you sign with the A's?' I wanted to play in Oakland. I could have gone with Toronto."

Ramirez will miss the season's first 50 games for violating Major League Baseball's Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment program. He was charged with the violation last April while with the Rays. Instead of serving a 100-game ban, he retired. He applied for reinstatement in December, and MLB reduced his punishment because he sat out nearly all of last season.

Ramirez said he is "blessed" to be given another opportunity to play the game in which he has totaled 555 home runs, 14th on the all-time list.

He was arrested last September for allegedly hitting his wife, Juliana, during a domestic dispute. Ramirez promises to be different.

"I made some mistakes," he said Friday after arriving at the A's ballpark with Juliana and their sons, Manny Jr. 9, and Lucas, 6, at his side. "I want to show my children I can correct [the mistakes]. I was about to lose my family. My wife brought me to church."

On a team with few stars, Ramirez was the prime attraction during batting drills. As he shifted from one diamond to another at the Papago Park complex, the fans followed him.

The new A's batting coach, Chili Davis, played for the 1998 and 1999 world champion Yankees. Davis said he has to remind Ramirez that at age 39 a different approach is required than a few years earlier, especially when a man hasn't faced major-league pitching in almost a year.

"He keeps telling me every day, 'Attack, attack,' " Ramirez said. "When you're away from the game, you do things you didn't do, get your hands in the wrong place."

At 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, Ramirez, whose familiar dreadlocks are encased in a wrap of the A's primary colors, green and yellow, was swinging away in a batting cage.

"His work ethic is terrific," Melvin said. "He does all the drills. He's a guy who's been catered to in the past, but now he's doing what everybody else does."