Can you guys imagine if we were actually pissed at each other? This could get ugly fast? Now we'll just have to let hacks and idiots like CHB stir up something that does not exist.
John Henry and I had a very comfortable discussion walking across the field yesterday. I have nothing but the utmost respect for him, and think he feels the same way about me.
Theo and I had a very comfortable discussion the last two days as well.
The Red Sox knew I was doing the morning radio show on WEEI and contrary to what Hemingway wrote in the Globe it's not a 'paid appearance' and never has been. THe money raised on EEI is for ALS and always has been.
The Red Sox knew, and we spoke at length prior to, this going public in January. We both knew that someone in the media had found out from someone other than Theo or I about the discussions and that person was going to write about it, with what would have been incorrect facts. No one was blindsided and no one really cared about the perception of it going public other than to want the facts to get reported.
I know CHB finds it hard to believe, which is understandable, but the 'gun to the head' approach was never a factor here, both sides knew this.
I'd love to tell you I look like Gabe Kapler with my shirt off, I don't. However I weigh 243 pounds right now, which is exactly 2 pounds under what I weighed in at at seasons end last year. The clothes make me look fat.......
Am I disappointed? Yep. Am I surprised? Nope. Is everyone but the parties involved making way too much out of this? Yep.
I've forever needed baseball a whole hell of a lot more than it needs me, I've always known that. I have also always known that it is a business, even when you don't want it to be.
Please trust me when I say, and have said, this will have zero bearing on my preperation or performance this season. I don't pitch for contracts, never have. My three best years were in the first year of new contracts. I pitch to win, just like most of the other guys in this game do.
One of the lines CHB failed to put into the article he wrote a few weeks back was me, on the phone, calling him an asshole. He knows as sure as he's reading this right now that I think he's a giant sphincter.
At some point soon he'll realize that the dislike for him here is not because he's the guy always taking the 'other side' while trying to illicit opinions and responses from readers, but rather he's disliked because he treats people like shit.
Writers like him, and there are others I can assure you, are the reason athletes come to despise members of the media. They aren't all like that but it's just hard to figure out who's who sometimes.
I'm a father of 4 incredible kids, the husband to a woman who turned her bout with cancer into a life saving organization, the boss of a man who drives an hour each day to work, both ways, in my company, that is dying from ALS, and the Lord has blessed me with the ability to spend 21 years playing professional baseball.
I guess what I am saying is that the sun came up today, life is good. If it's meant to be that I come back here then it will happen. If not then I sure as hell will relish in the fact that I got to be here and experience something I couldn't have dreamed up.
Now move along people, talk about something like my career OPS, or can Papi hit 60 this year? Don't let the media make you waste time on issues that just aren't issues to anyone but them.
They can hate the fact that I talk on EEI, or write in these forums, hell he's done it for 4 years, but it's still going to happen and at the end of the day he's still going to be the most misinformed guy in this group when it comes to the Sox and their fans.
Edited by Gehrig38, 23 February 2007 - 03:52 PM.
