Back to Benitez for a moment. Lawrence Rocca of the Newark Star-Ledger has a piece reporting a conversation between former Mets manager Bobby Valentine and current Yankee GM Brian Cashman. Valentine, according to Rocca, lays most of the blame for Benitez's lack of acceptance in the Met clubhouse on the man he displaced as closer, reliever John Franco. Apparently the tough-talking son of a Brooklyn garbageman dished out more than his share of trash regarding his teammate:
According to people familiar with the conversation, Valentine told Cashman that Benitez's biggest problem with the Mets could be summed up in two words: John Franco.
It was Franco, bitter over being replaced as closer by Benitez, who led the back-stabbing of the sensitive pitcher in the Mets' fractured clubhouse, Valentine told Cashman.
It was Franco, the team captain, who leaked the embarrassing anecdotes about Benitez to the press that fueled the scornful fans.
It was Franco, Valentine told Cashman, who made Benitez the miserable and lonely figure he would become by the end of his tenure with the team.
Not that Valentine's mouth has ever made him an upstanding model when it comes to press relations, but there's plenty here that rings true. Having recently read Bob Klapisch and John Harper's account of the dismal 1992 Mets, The Worst Team Money Could Buy, it comes as no great surprise to hear about Franco's sabotage. Indeed, that entire book is a lesson in the ways "off the record" conversations with beat reporters fan the flames of discontent in a clubhouse. Franco was certainly a part of the action there, and his opinions carried a lot of clout -- he's the one who called for the press boycott in the spring of '92 over the reporting of various Mets' sexual escapades. Considering he was team captain and the man most affected by Benitez's arrival, it's apparent that he had an axe to grind in the situation, and the forum to do so.
This doesn't diminish Benitez's failures, but it certainly sheds some light on the ones which came with the Mets. Suddenly, those recent "anonymous" quotes regarding the need for Benitez to leave make much more sense. Who wouldn't be distracted by back-stabbing teammates?
Not that those left behind can do any better; a headline from today's New York Times: "Franco Picks Up Right Where Benitez Left Off." Touchι, trashman.
For whatever it's worth, both Benitez and Franco have refuted Rocca's article, with the New York Daily News reporting the following:
"He did great," added Franco, Benitez's predecessor and potential successor as Mets closer. "He's a human being. He may have blown some games for us - the World Series and playoffs and big games - but everyone has done it. It's just that he's under the spotlight."
With friends like that, who needs enemies? Benitez still throws smoke, but at this stage of his career, all Franco does is blow smoke.
So , to borrow a line from Office Space, I wouldn't say I missedthis year's game. Rather, I chose an alternate form of baseball entertainment -- though to be honest, when I bought the tickets three months ago, I had no idea the game conflicted with the ASG. Anyway, five friends and I ferried to Staten Island to watch an installment of the Class-A version of the Yankees-Mets crosstown rivalry, as the Brooklyn Cyclones battled the Staten Island Yanks. The Staten Island ballpark, officially Richmond County Bank Ballpark at St. George, is a 25-minute free ferry ride from Manhattan. The park's outfield opens up to reveal Upper Bay and the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan -- as unique a vantage point as any professional stadium in America, even with the loss of the skyline's two most prominent buildings.
The Cyclones have owned the Baby Bombers this season; they entered the game having beaten the Bombers six straight times and with an 11.5 game edge in the McNamara division of the New York-Penn League. The game itself, however, was a nip-and-tuck affair. The Cyclones scored two runs in the top of the first inning, but the Yanks tied it up in the second and took the lead, 3-2, in the fourth. The 'Clones scored three in the sixth, but the Baby Bombers clawed back with a run in the eighth to make it 5-4.
The bottom of the ninth was a wild affair. A leadoff single by one Horace Lawrence was followed by a poor sacrifice bunt by Alexander Santa (who did not deliver) which led to a force at second. Then the Bombers centerfielder, 18-year-old Melky Cabrera, stroked his fifth hit of the ballgame, putting runners on first and second. The next batter, Adam Shorts, popped a foul ball down the first base line. Cyclones first baseman Ian Bladergroen, made an over-the-shoudler catch on the run, and the runners tagged. Bladergroen (isn't that what happens in a long bathroom line?) threw the ball to the shortstop ahead of Cabrera, who stopped in his tracks and began retreating to the uncovered first base. Meanwhile, Santa rounded third and headed for home, as the shortstop finally came to his senses and threw a perfect peg to catcher Yunir Garcia, who held the ball in a collision at the plate. The Yanks lost, but nobody left feeling as if they'd gotten anything less than their money's worth on that one.
The All-Star Break provides an opportunity for trade winds to swirl, and nowhere are they swirling more than here in New York City. The hot rumor, by now nothing less than a painful inevitibility, is that the Yankees will acquire beleaguered Met closer Armando Benitez for reliever Jason Anderson and a couple of prospects, with the Yanks also letting the Mets off the hook by paying the rest of Benitez's contract this season (approximately $3 million).
This, to borrow another line from Office Space, is a fuck.
No player in the history of the Yankee and Met franchises has been reviled simultaneously by both teams' fans the way Benitez is. Mets fans hate him for blowing leads in their biggest games, such as Game 6 of the 199 NLCS against Atlanta, Game One of the 2000 World Series against the Yanks, two crucial gamed against the Braves during the 2001 stretch run, not to mention a bushelful earlier this season, including a four-walk affair against the Yanks on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. Yank fans' hatred of Benitez goes back to 1998, when he drilled Tino Martinez in the back with a fastball, inciting a surreal bench-clearing brawl. The fact that Benitez has imploded against the Yanks in key situations doesn't exactly raise his stock in their eyes either. No, we like him enough right where he is.
In giving up Anderson, the Yanks are cutting the cord on the first promising pitcher they've produced since Ramiro Mendoza in 1996 (except for Ted Lilly, perhaps). He's only gotten 20.2 innings of big league experience under his belt in 22 appearances this season (a 4.79 ERA), and he was roughed up twice last weekend against the Red Sox, but the 24-year old is a Live Arm who's already as capable as anybody else at the back end of the Yankee pen. If Joe Torre and the rest of the Yankee organization could have cured their addiction to Proven Veterans in the pen (see Acevedo, Juan and Miceli, Dan), they might have found themselves with a weapon eventually capable of filling Jeff Nelson's big, floppy shoes.
But that, as we've been reminded all too many times, isn't the Yankee Way, not with George Steinbrenner's deep pockets and win-now mentality. Never mind the fact that virtually the entire fan base would rather see Benitez implode than watch him help the Yanks win, or that the Yankees' upper farm system is the laughingstock of the game beyond Anderson, Brandon Claussen and a couple of others not named Henson, Almonte, or Rivera. The Yanks are about to take their meager harvest and turn it into the most bitter fruit of all.
That sushi dinner I wagered on the Minnesota Twins now stinks of rotten fish. The Twins, losers of eight straight and 12 out of 13 going into the All-Star break now find themselves in third place in the AL Central, 7.5 games behind the Kansas City Royals, a half-game behind the Chicago White Sox, and five games below .500. Is it time to start crying wasabi tears?
The Twins are simultaneously blessed and cursed with a plethora of corner position hitters, with manager Ron Gardenhire showing a frustrating unwillingness to commit too strongly to any of the youngsters. Most maddening has been his treatment of outfielder Bobby Kielty, a switch-hitter whose defense is good enough to play centerfield without being laughed out of the ballpark. A rookie last year, 25-year-old Kielty put up an 890 OPS in 348 plate appearances, showing both power (.484 SLG) and a keen batting eye (.405 OBP). But Gardenhire, operating on the theory that this weapon was too important to have in the starting lineup, kept Kielty shackled to the bench in the postseason, limiting him to seven at-bats in seven games.
Thus began a "Free Bobby Kielty" campaign which finally seemed to pay off early this season. Kielty started the year hot, posting a 1013 OPS in April and finally becoming a daily concern in the Twins lineup. A pulled rib-cage muscle slowed him in May, however, and his production has fallen off precipitously: a 771 OPS in May, a meager 634 in June, and a paltry 670 thus far in July.
On Wednesday, the Twins made Kielty something of a scapegoat, shipping him to the Toronto Blue Jays for Shannon Stewart and a player to be named later. In and of itself, trading Kielty in the face of such a redundancy of talent (Michael Cuddyer, Dustin Mohr, Lew Ford, Justin Morneau, Matt LeCroy, Todd Sears, and Michael Restovich) isn't indefensible. But adding another corner outfielder, even a useful (if somewhat overrated one) to the stockpile while ignoring the Twins' needs in the middle infield and in the starting rotation is borderline criminal. Further, this is a lousy deal from the cost-conscious Twins' perspective. Kielty makes only $325,000 and still has 3 years to go before free agency. Stewart, on the other hand, is making over $6 million this season and will be a free agent at season's end.
Even before the trade Rob Neyer chimed in on the topic of the Twins squandering their talent surplus. Now, we can expect plenty of outrage from the online Twins community, especially Mr. Bonnes and Mr. Gleeman.
Meanwhile, those of you who've ponied up the dough ought to read Steven Goldman's piece on the Twins at Baseball Prospectus Premium. Goldman, who pens the much-revered Pinstriped Bible for YESNetwork.com, compares the Twins org's handling of their talent to that of the Casey Stengel-era Yankees. As Goldman points out, the Stengel era was marked by two distinct phases, with opposing tentendcies. In the first (1949-54), the Yanks did a good job of analyzing their youngsters, giving them shots at limited roles in which they could be productive, then gradually expanding those roles. In the second, the Yanks jerked the youngsters around, disappointed in them for what they were not. Goldman finds the Twins at this pivotal point, with tons of talent at their disposal and and wonders which way they'll swing. Good stuff.
In the same sausage-marred game, relief pitcher/outfielder Brooks Kieschnick recorded his first major-league win. Kieschnick entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the 11th inning, hitting a single. He then took over the pitching duties, tossing a scoreless inning before the Brewers scored a run in the 12th.
The Kieschnick experience is working out reasonably well for the Brewers. As a pitcher, he's tossed 31 innings in 23 games, with a 4.35 ERA and a 1-1 record. He's shown good control, walking only 5 and striking out 18 (3.6 K/W, 5.2 K/9). As a hitter he's been even better, hiting .333/.362/.622 (984 OPS) with 4 homers in 45 at-bats. He's 7-for-15 as a pinch-hitter, with an 1162 OPS. The Brewers are having another rough season in the cellar of the NL Central 37-56, .398 winning percentage), but their 25th man isn't the problem.
Finally, there's a real Pride of the Yankees. Curtis Pride, best known for making the majors ten years ago despite being almost totally deaf, joined the Yanks on July 4. Of course, that's the anniversary of Lou Gehrig's famous farewell speech. In a story too perfect for fiction, Pride homered in his first game as a Yankee on July 6. In front of a packed house of 55,000, Pride drew a curtain call he couldn't even hear, but whose vibrations he could feel. The blow helped the Yanks beat the Red Sox, 7-1, and to turn around a tense series complete with with trash talk and purpose pitches.
The 34-year-old Pride has played in parts of seven seasons in the bigs prior to this stay with the Yanks, hitting .256/.335/.414 in just over 700 at-bats. His best season came in 1996 for the Tigers, where he hit .300/.372/.513 with 10 homers and stole 11 bases. Prior to joining the Yanks, he hadn't played in the majors since 2001.
When Pride came up in 1993, the bigs hadn't seen a deaf player in 50 years. Baseball Primer's Bruce Markusen, who also works for the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, has a history of the handful of deaf players who've played in the majors, starting with Dummy Hoy, who popped up on an old scorecard I investigated recently. Hoy is often credited as the reason umpires adopted hand signals for safe, out, and strike calls, which would make for a nice little niche in baseball history. Alas, according to Markusen, it's not quite so clear-cut; the signals his third-base coach gave Hoy may have inspired their usage by umps.
Speaking of substitute Yankee outfielders, Karim Garcia continues to do his David Justice impersonation since donning pinstripes. Since joining the Yanks, he's hit .349/.364/.581 with 3 HR in 43 AB while the team has gone 10-6. While he just suffered through a hitless week, Garcia's play since joining the Yanks has given them a nice little lift and added some sorely-needed depth.
But the sweetest music of all for Yankee fans is the return of centerfielder Bernie Williams, who missed 42 games after undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery. In his first game back last Wednesday, Williams broke an 0-for-23 skid with a single and drove in two runs.
Williams, who moonlights as an avid musician, will release his first CD, The Journey Within, on GRP Records on Tuesday. The New York Times describes Williams' music as "Latin-flavored jazz with a tinge of soul." That may not be your cup of tea, but then again, Paul McCartney's not your biggest fan.
In considerably less melodic news, Dusty Baker apparently left his brain in San Francisco. The Chicago Cubs manager shot his mouth off on July 5 with a wacko racist theory which would have gotten a white man fired had he uttered it:
You don't find too many brothers in New Hampshire and Maine and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, right? We were brought over here for the heat, right? Isn't that history? Weren't we brought over because we could take the heat?
Your skin color is more conducive to the heat than it is to the light-skinned people, right? You don't see brothers running around burnt and stuff, running around with white stuff on their ears and nose and stuff.
Ugh. Anybody else think Dusty's spent too long baking his brains in the sun? Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey lets Baker off fairly gently, pointing out the scientific basis of Dr. Baker's theory is less than sound.
According to a study by Dr. Robert S. Helman of New York Medical College, "heatstroke affects all races equally. However, because of differences in social advantages, the annual death rate because of environmental conditions is more than three times higher in blacks than in whites."
Another study by the Borden Institute, which researches medical issues in the military, states: "It has been suggested that as a group, blacks are less heat-tolerant than whites. This is certainly supported by U.S. Army medical reports."
I don't want to make any more out of this than what it isa man talking out loud without checking his facts first. Baker isn't saying the solution to the Cubs' difficulties is more people of color and fewer people of pastiness. He's saying what a lot of people take on faith, that blacks are better suited for work in warm weather than whites are. He just happens to be wrong.
Bill Conlin of the Philadelphia Daily News questions Dusty's history lesson ("Yo, Dusty, do you think more slaves died in the summer heat of the Southeastern states or in the raging influenza epidemics of the winters?") and serves up a few historical parallels for comments of Baker's ilk: Dodger GM Al Campanis, football prognosticator Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, and John Rocker. Not exactly good company to be in.
The Mets divested themselves of one of the most disappointing players in recent memory, Roberto Alomar, trading him to the Chicago White Sox for three minor-leaguers. It certainly doesn't look like new GM Jim Duquette got very much for the second baseman except the privelege of paying his salary while the Mets rid themselves of a major disappointment. Then again, I can think of people I've worked with whom I would have paid $3.75 million to see leave, if only I had that kind of change lying around. And an interested buyer, of course.
The pick of the crap, I mean crop, of prospects the Mets received is pitcher Royce Ring. Around the Majors' Lee Sinins had this to say about Ring:
Ring, 22, was the Whitesox 1st round pick in 2002. He was ranked as the team's #10 prospect by Baseball America and was given a B grade by John Sickels. After having a 3.91 ERA in 21 games in A ball in 2002 (plus 5 shutout innings in Rookie ball), the reliever is off to a 2.52 ERA start in 36 games in AA in 2003.
Meanwhile, the dismantling of the Mets jugger-naught continues. On Monday they traded outfielder Jeromy Burnitz to the Dodgers for three promising prospects, and reportedly the Dodgers will even pick up some of the outfielder's $11.5 million salary. Burnitz alone won't be enough to help the Dodgers' woeful offense, which is now smarting from a season-ending knee injury to Brian Jordan, a second stint on the DL from the Crime Dog, Fred McGriff, and an all-around craptacular season from Shawn Green. But even with all that and the Dodgers having lost 15 of 20, Jim Tracy -- with the help of the nearest hardware store and a deep pitching staff -- will probably still cobble together something resembling a wild-card contender.
There's plenty more of this stuff, but at the risk of drowning my readership in old news, I'm just going to have to accept that I missed the better part of two weeks baseball and move on...
