Some bits of business before resuming the G(r)eek Chorus for the Fabulous 50s.
Francisco Campos, whom I never actually sighted, is no more.
Jason Phillips is soon to be no more — though apparently the deal for Ishii can't be formalized until tomorrow because the commissioner's office isn't open on the weekend.
Wha? This can't be right. When teams make a trade involving money, they
don't send Selig & Co. an e-mail that says something like “Jason
for Kaz, and oh the Dodgers have to pay us a bunch of money, please
figure out how much.” I assume they work all that out themselves, and
leave it for some lawyer to eyeball and hit with an “OK” stamp. If so,
you're telling me some lawyer can't receive a fax on a Sunday morning?
Ridiculous.
As for the deal itself, the last two days of Always Amazin' offer a nice rundown
of reasons to be fearful. What worries me is everyone seems to be
forgetting that Mike Piazza is old and has broken down repeatedly the
last two seasons, making this not your typical backup-catcher
situation. If Piazza's [insert body part here] explodes on Memorial
Day, Ramon Castro or Joe Hietpas are not names you want to see in the
lineup for months at a stretch.
In ex-Met news, Roberto Alomar hung 'em up, saying that “I played a lot of games and I said I would never embarrass myself on
the field. I had a long career, but I can't play at
the level I want to play, so it's time to retire.”
Now, if he'd said that in March 2003, refunding our money and
apologizing to our fans that hey, it didn't work out, I might wish him
well. We all know that in our uniform, he wasn't the superb baseball
player he'd been. OK, at a certain point that happens. The spitting
thing will be remembered more than it should be — if John Hirschbeck
forgave him, good enough for me. Put those two things aside and you're
still left with the fact that as a Met, Alomar was a bad teammate who
didn't play hard. On the first score, there was the unforgiveable day
in San Juan when he and his little friend Rey Sanchez blamed Jae Seo (a
rookie!) for a play they blew. On the latter, there were the endless
lollipop throws on the pivot, costing us far too many double plays.
Then, when word came Robbie might become a White Sock, he miraculously
started hanging in there on the pivot instead of tiptoeing into
left-center. Incredible!
Robbie will make the Hall of Fame. But he'll never get that 3,000th
hit. And no one will ever discuss him for more than a minute in New
York City without noting that on baseball's biggest stage he was
revealed a backstabber and a jaker and a quitter.
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