Wednesday, April 18, 2012

the last book I ever reread (Ball Four, excerpt six)



from Jim Bouton's Ball Four:

Lou Piniella has the red ass. He doesn't think he's been playing enough. He's a good-looking ballplayer, 6-2, handsome, speaks fluent Spanish and unaccented English. He's from Tampa. He says he knows they don't want him and that he's going to quit baseball rather than go back to Triple-A. He says that once you get labeled Triple-A, that's it. I suggested to him that this wasn't the year to quit because the Seattle people were bound to make mistakes in their early decisions and I thought there would be a shuttle system between Vancouver and Seattle and that guys who didn't stay with the club the first month might be called up real quick. But he said he was going to quit anyway and force them to do something. And since he cost $175,000 in the expansion draft he figures they'd rather make a deal for him than lose him altogether. He's probably right. A lot of decisions in baseball are based upon cost rather than ability. Cost is easier to judge.

No comments:

Post a Comment