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Meanwhile, turns out the Dodgers were willing to trade Manny Ramirez

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Maybe the most intriguing news to come out of the flurry of deadline trades was that the Dodgers were willing to trade Manny Ramirez.

Either that, or that some teams -- as in more than one -- would still actually want him. He is, after all, at age 38, on the disabled list for the third time this season. And with no one sounding all that certain when he might grace the Dodgers again.

Still, apparently the White Sox called Ned Colletti and said they’d take him off the Dodgers’ hands. They offered no players in return and said they would contribute an entire $1 million toward the approximately $6.6 million he still has coming this season.

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Such an enticing offer. Somehow, Colletti turned it down. Still, the word got out that they had talked, and other teams started calling.

‘Calls were coming in on that with a half hour to go,’ Colletti said. ‘A little bit too cumbersome to get that accomplished when there’s so many different things to be done, including his waiving of a no-trade clause.

‘But at the end of the day, we still need Manny. We need him to get healthy and we need him in left field for us and in the middle of the order.’

No doubt, the offensively challenged Dodgers desperately need the Manny they had for the last two months of 2008. Little hint: He ain’t coming.

This current version of Manny has played in only 61 of the Dodgers’ 104 games, and this one offers only modest power (eight home runs). He can help, but right now so could Eric Karros. And he’s 42 and been retired for six years.

Maybe Colletti didn’t start this Manny interest, but he didn’t exactly throw water on it, either. He let another team know about a player they would want on a third team to complete a deal. That’s a team willing to move Manny.

‘The team that had the strongest interest in him was trying to get another player we had interest in from another club,’ Colletti said. ‘And that didn’t happen, so that went by the wayside.

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‘The timing of it would have been very difficult. But other than that, we didn’t start it. We didn’t start the rumors, we didn’t float the name, it was one team that came forward, and I’m not sure what they were really trying to accomplish.’

I’d say, trying to get a one-time impact player on the cheap. Still, the Dodgers listened. They made a proposal. They were willing to deal Manny.

He is, of course, out of here at the end of the season anyway. So if they could have gotten something decent in return, why not explore it?

Now they have to hope he can return and resemble the slugger they couldn’t pick up before the deadline.

-- Steve Dilbeck

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