Manny to Marlins ... then Yankees? It was considered

LOS ANGELES -- Shocking as the Manny Ramirez trade to Los Angeles was Thursday, the Florida Marlins briefly considered a deal that really could have sent the game into orbit.

While attempting to work the three-way trade with Boston and Pittsburgh, the Marlins, on a parallel path, explored the idea of flipping Ramirez to the New York Yankees, sources with knowledge of the club's thinking told CBSSports.com.

Take a moment and imagine Manny in the Big Apple instead of Hollywood. (AP)

The idea never took flight, partly because the Marlins determined that the Yankees were not receptive to the idea. And, a certain representative of Ramirez's never would have allowed it.

"If any club tried to do that, we'd stop them from doing it," Scott Boras, Ramirez's agent, said in Dodger Stadium on Friday afternoon. "There were a lot of teams we knew were talking about doing this or doing that, but we weren't going to make Manny a postcard."

There was one other problem with the Marlins' idea: A person close to Ramirez said the slugger, who had full no-trade powers, never would have accepted a trade to Florida even had the Marlins been able to reach an agreement in principle with the Red Sox and Pirates. This despite the fact that he owns a home in the Miami area. Among the reasons the person cited was Florida's big ballpark and unstable ownership.

Boras would not specifically discuss the Marlins and their involvement in talks with Boston and Pittsburgh, or to which clubs Ramirez would or would not have accepted a trade.

"We told the Red Sox to examine all of their options and let us know what they came up with," Boras said. "We let Boston know that Los Angeles was a place where Manny would go to."

The Marlins, fighting to overtake Philadelphia and the New York Mets in the NL East, remained in trade discussions with Boston and Pittsburgh right up until Thursday's 4 p.m. ET trade deadline.

Eventually, the Red Sox turned to the Dodgers to help complete the deal that sealed the end of Manny's time in Boston, partly because Pittsburgh could not be satisfied with the level of prospects coming back. Among other things, the Marlins refused to include Triple-A pitcher Ryan Tucker and Class A outfielder Mike Stanton in the deal.

But as things played out, perhaps the Marlins never were as close to landing Ramirez as they -- and many others -- thought.