Ron Washington visits Angels in Texas, provides details on his health issue

The Los Angeles Angels have been missing their ball-coach, as Ron Washington was forced to step away from the team in late-June with a previously undisclosed health issue. Well, Washington has emerged back into the public eye in heartwarming fashion -- he visited the Angels in Arlington as they are about to face the Rangers.

Ron Washington visits Angels in Texas, provides details on his health issue

Washington spoke to Angels beat writers before the Angels' series opener against their division rivals, and revealed he needed a quadruple bypass surgery. The 73-year-old's condition was not known to the public until now, and Washington was quite jovial to tell everybody. He lifted his shirt to show reporters his surgery scars, and was cracking jokes. Clearly, he is happy with his new condition and optimistic about his future in baseball after eight weeks of recovering from the procedure.

“My eating habits have changed,” Washington said in front of Jeff Fletcher of The OC Register and a giant media scrum. “I no longer smoke. I’m telling you, people have been after me for years about that, and it took a bypass for me to stop smoking. But I’m through smoking. I’ve changed my eating habits. I’m sleeping better, and I’m stress-free. I just feel stress-free. I mean, that’s simply because I’m not making decisions right now.”

Washington went on to endorse himself as the Angels' manager in 2026. The Angels have a team option on Wash for 2026, and Wash told the media that he will be clear to take part in baseball operations by December. Players like Zach Neto and Jo Adell have lauded Washington as their skipper, and were pained to see him not act like himself back in June. The players miss Wash, and Wash misses managing baseball games. The ball is in Perry Minasian's court, who is in Texas but did not speak to the beat writers.

Will the Angels want to add more stress to Washington after he said himself that not making decisions is causing him less stress? It is surely a tough decision, as most teams do not want to take someone's job away just because they were injured. However, that is the case for players and it will be fascinating to see if that mindset applies to a manager.

Minasian will need to weigh whether to bring back the oldest manager in baseball who is recovering from triple bypass surgery. At the very least, the team could try to convince Washington to take an advisory role if they find a more suitable managerial candidate on the open market in the offseason.

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