GaryMrMets
08-06-2004, 02:12 AM
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/sports/9323573.htm
Posted on Thu, Aug. 05, 2004
Bill Conlin | Rekindling a Giant feud?
By Bill Conlin
bill1chair@aol.com
WHEN I'M King of the World...
The Phillies will start a "Don't invite to the same party" file in their Bright House Network Field trade bunker...Did Ed Wade ask reliever Tim Worrell how he felt about being reunited with former Giants teammate
Felix Rodriguez? And now I know why F-Rod dropped a few F-bombs when informed Saturday he had been traded to the Phillies. According to a Sept. 29, 2001, piece by Giants beat writer Henry Schulman in the San Francisco Chronicle, Rodriguez and Worrell got along like India and Pakistan.
Schulman wrote this about a sourced clubhouse blowup between the Giants relievers: "Setup man Felix Rodriguez can get quite emotional, and in one hot moment a couple of weeks ago he went to general manager Brian Sabean and demanded a trade. Two team sources said Rodriguez got into a heated disagreement with fellow reliever Tim Worrell, then told Sabean he wanted out. Worrell declined to discuss the issue. In fact, he said, 'It wasn't me.' But Rodriguez did confirm that a personal disagreement with a teammate led to his trade request. 'I was [bleeped] off that day,' Rodriguez said."
A San Francisco source confirmed yesterday that the pitchers can't stand each other...Which calls to mind Casey Stengel's secret of managerial longevity, which went something like, "On every ballclub a third of the players think you're OK, another third hate your guts and the rest are undecided. The secret to managing a long time is to keep the ones who are undecided away from the ones who hate your guts"...
The 11-singles shutout of hard-hitting Anaheim by ex-Phillies
reliever Carlos Silva (key to the deal for Eric Milton) and achieved with just 100 pitches begs the question: Has anybody else noticed the Phillies appear to have one pitch count for low- or no-bonus Dominican and Venezuelan pitchers and another for big-bonus American draft picks? Silva was a horse of a minor league starter and made 129
relief appearances in his two Phillies seasons. Easy Ramirez led the Florida State League in innings pitched last year and righthander Alfredo Simon was among the FSL leaders in IP when traded to the Giants with Ricky Ledee for F-Rod. Ezequiel Astascio, sent with Taylor Buchholz and Brandon Duckworth to Houston for Billy Wagner, currently leads the Double A Texas League in strikeouts and innings pitched. You could pick up some change for future Money Pit purchases by betting that Gavin "Pretty Boy" Floyd will never do what Simon just did, to wit: Throw three straight complete-game, nine-inning victories, two of them shutouts.
When I'm King of the World...
Right next to the Bright House Bunker "Don't Invite To the Same Party" file will be a Vital Statistics file on all the Phillies' Latin players...Each green-card toting Phil will have a photocopy of the birth certificate he supplied when signing his professional contract next to the one he used to apply for his visa. Which raises the question of which Dominican minor league pitcher the Giants acquired Saturday. Was it Eduardo Cabrera, who according to the Phillies 2003 media guide was born in Santiago, DR, on Feb. 19, 1983, and signed with them on July 2, 1999, at age 16? Or did they get
Alfredo Simon, who according to the current media guide was born in Santiago, DR, on May 8, 1981, and signed on the same date as Cabrera at age 18? Whatever, both of them had a 16-4 minor league record coming into this season, including a 9-2 record at Batavia. Whatever, to avert visa problems in the wake of a Federal Immigration and Naturalization Services identity crackdown after 9/11, a lot of
Dominicans came here on phony documents and several years older than their birth-certificate dates. Simon "changed" his name from Eduardo Cabrera to the name on his real certificate. So, for the edification of Giants fans, the prospect GM Brian
Sabean just acquired went from 6-4, 174 to 6-4, 214 and from 21 to 23 in the blink of a rubber stamp. And he's actually more like 6-5, 245 by now. Whatever, I am told Giants pitching talent evaluator Dick Tidrow favorably compares Simon to top prospect Merkin Valdez, the future closer they got from the Braves in the deal for ace righthander Russ
Ortiz. Eduardo Alfredo Cabrera Simon was far from a throw-in with Ricky Ledee for F-Rod. He was the key - both of him.
When I'm King of the World...
Top Eagles free-agent signees will wear white jerseys with red crosses on them...You can hear the exhalations from the huge crowds gathered at the Birds Lehigh boot camp each time a Jevon Kearse or Terrell Owens takes a lick and stays down. The old Muhammad Ali sparring rules should be in
effect. You can throw punches
at the champ. You just can't
actually hit him...
Allen Iverson was terrific against the Germans yesterday in that wild OT victory Team USA pulled out against a cohesive, sharpshooting German team. But for the second straight game, it became painfully obvious that Larry Brown's under-starred Olympic basketball squad might be in deep going for gold against the brave new hoops world the first Dream Team helped create in the Barcelona Games. Getting caught up to is one thing, but getting passed by a bunch of teams that can actually shoot is another. Suddenly, the showtime dunk is looking cheaper and cheaper.
Posted on Thu, Aug. 05, 2004
Bill Conlin | Rekindling a Giant feud?
By Bill Conlin
bill1chair@aol.com
WHEN I'M King of the World...
The Phillies will start a "Don't invite to the same party" file in their Bright House Network Field trade bunker...Did Ed Wade ask reliever Tim Worrell how he felt about being reunited with former Giants teammate
Felix Rodriguez? And now I know why F-Rod dropped a few F-bombs when informed Saturday he had been traded to the Phillies. According to a Sept. 29, 2001, piece by Giants beat writer Henry Schulman in the San Francisco Chronicle, Rodriguez and Worrell got along like India and Pakistan.
Schulman wrote this about a sourced clubhouse blowup between the Giants relievers: "Setup man Felix Rodriguez can get quite emotional, and in one hot moment a couple of weeks ago he went to general manager Brian Sabean and demanded a trade. Two team sources said Rodriguez got into a heated disagreement with fellow reliever Tim Worrell, then told Sabean he wanted out. Worrell declined to discuss the issue. In fact, he said, 'It wasn't me.' But Rodriguez did confirm that a personal disagreement with a teammate led to his trade request. 'I was [bleeped] off that day,' Rodriguez said."
A San Francisco source confirmed yesterday that the pitchers can't stand each other...Which calls to mind Casey Stengel's secret of managerial longevity, which went something like, "On every ballclub a third of the players think you're OK, another third hate your guts and the rest are undecided. The secret to managing a long time is to keep the ones who are undecided away from the ones who hate your guts"...
The 11-singles shutout of hard-hitting Anaheim by ex-Phillies
reliever Carlos Silva (key to the deal for Eric Milton) and achieved with just 100 pitches begs the question: Has anybody else noticed the Phillies appear to have one pitch count for low- or no-bonus Dominican and Venezuelan pitchers and another for big-bonus American draft picks? Silva was a horse of a minor league starter and made 129
relief appearances in his two Phillies seasons. Easy Ramirez led the Florida State League in innings pitched last year and righthander Alfredo Simon was among the FSL leaders in IP when traded to the Giants with Ricky Ledee for F-Rod. Ezequiel Astascio, sent with Taylor Buchholz and Brandon Duckworth to Houston for Billy Wagner, currently leads the Double A Texas League in strikeouts and innings pitched. You could pick up some change for future Money Pit purchases by betting that Gavin "Pretty Boy" Floyd will never do what Simon just did, to wit: Throw three straight complete-game, nine-inning victories, two of them shutouts.
When I'm King of the World...
Right next to the Bright House Bunker "Don't Invite To the Same Party" file will be a Vital Statistics file on all the Phillies' Latin players...Each green-card toting Phil will have a photocopy of the birth certificate he supplied when signing his professional contract next to the one he used to apply for his visa. Which raises the question of which Dominican minor league pitcher the Giants acquired Saturday. Was it Eduardo Cabrera, who according to the Phillies 2003 media guide was born in Santiago, DR, on Feb. 19, 1983, and signed with them on July 2, 1999, at age 16? Or did they get
Alfredo Simon, who according to the current media guide was born in Santiago, DR, on May 8, 1981, and signed on the same date as Cabrera at age 18? Whatever, both of them had a 16-4 minor league record coming into this season, including a 9-2 record at Batavia. Whatever, to avert visa problems in the wake of a Federal Immigration and Naturalization Services identity crackdown after 9/11, a lot of
Dominicans came here on phony documents and several years older than their birth-certificate dates. Simon "changed" his name from Eduardo Cabrera to the name on his real certificate. So, for the edification of Giants fans, the prospect GM Brian
Sabean just acquired went from 6-4, 174 to 6-4, 214 and from 21 to 23 in the blink of a rubber stamp. And he's actually more like 6-5, 245 by now. Whatever, I am told Giants pitching talent evaluator Dick Tidrow favorably compares Simon to top prospect Merkin Valdez, the future closer they got from the Braves in the deal for ace righthander Russ
Ortiz. Eduardo Alfredo Cabrera Simon was far from a throw-in with Ricky Ledee for F-Rod. He was the key - both of him.
When I'm King of the World...
Top Eagles free-agent signees will wear white jerseys with red crosses on them...You can hear the exhalations from the huge crowds gathered at the Birds Lehigh boot camp each time a Jevon Kearse or Terrell Owens takes a lick and stays down. The old Muhammad Ali sparring rules should be in
effect. You can throw punches
at the champ. You just can't
actually hit him...
Allen Iverson was terrific against the Germans yesterday in that wild OT victory Team USA pulled out against a cohesive, sharpshooting German team. But for the second straight game, it became painfully obvious that Larry Brown's under-starred Olympic basketball squad might be in deep going for gold against the brave new hoops world the first Dream Team helped create in the Barcelona Games. Getting caught up to is one thing, but getting passed by a bunch of teams that can actually shoot is another. Suddenly, the showtime dunk is looking cheaper and cheaper.