It’s time. The Dodgers need another hitter. Manny Ramirez needs another contract.

Time for Scott Boras to get out of the way and let the man-child he represents, Manny, sign with the Dodgers and get on with what he does best: Crush baseballs.

Let’s get busy.

The Dodgers apparently have sweetened their offer to Ramirez one more time. Now, it’s no worse than $45 million for two seasons for Manny. In this economy and with no other team pursuing his client, Manny’s cash-crazed agent, the aforementioned Boras, should let Manny sign.

Don’t we all assume Boras manipulates his players like puppets? Particularly those as guileless/clueless as Manny Ramirez?

Let the man accept the $45 million and get him into camp, where perhaps he can get into whatever shape Manny needs to be in to hit 30-35 homers and drive in 110-120 runs. (We know it’s not as if he has to spend a lot of time in the outfield; he has been arguably the worst outfielder in ball for years now.)

We don’t know whose pride is at stake here, Manny’s or Boras’s, but $25 million for one season ought to be a sufficient ego massage. And the $20 million player option for the second year, well, that should put this over the top. If Manny suddenly starts showing his age, or gets hurt, and his value plummets, he still cashes in on $20 million for 2010. If he tears it up this year and the economy has recovered, then he can be a free agent all over again next fall and take another whack at the four years and $100 million Boras seems to be fantasizing about.

Last summer, what seems like a million years ago, I argued against a Dodgers deal for Manny. He had quit on the Red Sox, you may recall, and a guy who can quit on one team certainly can do it to another, and do you really want guys like that around? Generally, no.

Then Manny got to L.A. and tore it up for a couple of months, and electrified Dodger Stadium, and now the club needs him as a marketing prop for a team that looks weaker than it did a year ago — unless Manny also can pitch 200 innings and win 15 games, but we’ve seen his arm.

So do it, already. Boras gets his 6-10 percent or whatever it is of Manny’s contract (which works out to $2.7-4.5 million for the agent). Manny will be the highest-paid player in ball in 2009, Alex Rodriguez aside, and the Dodgers have a marketing centerpiece. (As soon as the ink is dry, the orders go out for the jersey, the scully and the dreadlock wigs.)

Enough posturing. Enough delays. No one else is going to sign the guy and the Dodgers aren’t going to keep bidding against themselves (are they?), so do the deal and let’s move on and find out if Manny can reprise the magic he brought to Chavez Ravine last September.