Schilling: A Pitcher's Most Memorable Thanksgiving - 美國職棒

Schilling談到當年被交易的小故事

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2003 Season: Five innings, six earned runs, two strikeouts a loss to the
Brewers. After the 2001 World Series, after a 2002 season in which I was
privileged to team up with R.J. to become the first duo to strike out 300
hitters each in a single season, that was my line score for what would be my
last start as an Arizona Diamondback.

I didn't know it at the time, but that would be it.

The 2003 season was very weird. A broken finger from a line drive off Sean
Burroughs’ bat, a complete game (in which I had 3 hits!) with a case of
appendicitis that put me in a St. Louis hospital and a litany of ailments
interrupted that season for me multiple times. R.J. was hurt as well, and we
basically stunk.

One of the only pluses of that season was being able to watch Brandon Webb
establish himself as a stud in the NL. But the writing was on the wall, and I
missed it.

Late in the year, Mr. Colangelo (the Diamondbacks owner who I think the world
of), Todd Stottlemyre and I were sitting in the clubhouse manager’s office
while we were getting beat. Mr. Colangelo was pissed. He was talking about
payroll and how he had no issues with paying the money as long as players
performed. He looked at both Stott and me and said:

"Look at you two, $17 million dollars pissed away for two guys that haven't
done anything this year."

Stott and I were pretty quiet. He left, we looked at each other and smiled
that nervous "I am not sure how to react" smile. We both laughed and at the
same time said pretty much the same thing.

No matter what you thought about the man the reason you loved him was his
honesty. You never had to guess where you stood with him, because he had no
trouble telling you.


2003 Winter: Sometime early in the 2003 offseason it became clear there was
going to be a culling of payroll in Arizona. It took about two seconds to
realize that meant "Trade Schilling" since R.J. and Gonzo both recently had
signed long-term deals.

To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I grew up there, and I
was a member of the first team ever to bring home a world championship for
the state. But it's a business, a fact I'd be exposed to at least one more
time over the final five years of my career.

In late November, Shonda throws a fundraiser at our home for the SHADE
foundation. Mr. Colangelo and our G.M., Joe Garagiola Jr., attend. The event
raises huge money but also features a pretty surreal turn of events.

About a week or two before this it became known that Arizona was shopping me.
I had a total no-trade and had made it clear that my top two choices were the
Yankees and Phillies. If I was leaving Arizona I wanted to be in a spot that
either had familiarity (Philadelphia) or a chance to win every year (The
Yanks). There were a few other teams I was interested in: St. Louis, Atlanta,
Chicago to a lesser degree. I knew I could still pitch and knew the 2003
season was a fluke as far as injuries were concerned.

A few days before this event, an article came out in which a writer stated
that an 'unnamed source' told him that I had said Boston would interest me.
That was a lie. I had never even uttered the name Boston Red Sox, much less
considered the team a possible destination—never.

However on the day of the event the media found out that Terry Francona was
the front-runner for the Sox managerial opening. That meant I would be open
to Boston as a potential suitor if that opportunity presented itself. I had
not talked to anyone about that going into the fundraising event.

About this same time I received a call from a close friend. John Gambadoro, a
local sports talk show host in Arizona and HUGE Yankee fan, asked me what I
was doing. He offered to reach outto someone he knew in New York to make sure
the Yankees were aware of my interest there. I said sure, and he did.

The Turning Point: It happened this fast, honestly.

"Jerry, I heard Francona was interviewing for the Sox job?"

"Yeah, I read that today."

"Well just so you know, if he gets the job Boston would be a place I'd be
interested in."

"Really?"

"Yes"

Jerry walks from me to Joe, and they converse for like 10 minutes.

In the meantime I go over to Shonda and say something to the effect of, "I
just told Jerry that I'd listen to Boston if Tito got the job," to which she
replied, "What? We are supposed to talk about this!"

Boston was not high up on her list. She was partial to a New York move at the
time.

Less than 10 minutes later Joe comes to me:

"Boston will be calling you tomorrow"

Boston had called Arizona even before this, I assume to talk about some
initial deal points and lay some preliminary groundwork in case the
opportunity arose. I had no idea about those discussions at the time, but it
was painfully obvious that had happened when you think about how fast things
proceeded.


It begins: I really don't remember the next 24 hours, or how we were
originally contacted. What I do know is that the Diamondbacks told me they
had negotiated a deal with Boston and agreed on the players involved, and
that the Red Sox would have 72 hours to negotiate a new contract with me. The
period of time to kick this off was the Tuesday prior to Thanksgiving.

The next part I can remember is the knock at our door on Tuesday morning. I
open the door—T-shirt, shorts, flip flops—and there stands a guy who looks
to me to be about 17 years old.

"Hello, I'm Jed Hoyer, Assistant to the General Manager of the Boston Red
Sox."

While immediately thinking "B.S.—this is R.J. or someone playing a gag on me,
” I could see he had bags of “stuff” in his hands and a letter.

I honestly cannot remember if Theo was there or not. I think (?) he might
have been. Anyway, Jed presented me with this letter, and gift bags.

I received two letters during these negotiations. I think the first one was a
sincere thank you for the opportunity to attempt this, and the second was a
letter from Bill James, speaking directly to me about the fact that Fenway
was far from a 'hitters park' and that statistical research showed I would
perform much better in Fenway than I had in Bank One in most cases.

The gift bags were full of Red Sox gear and memorabilia for all of our
children.

Regardless of the content of any of this, the first thought that hit me was,
"Classy." The Red Sox were serious and they knew how to show that in a
meaningful way. I was impressed to say the least.

I started to get a feel that I'd be much more open than I originally thought.
My main concern after they left this quick first meeting was whether they
could convince me that this group of dysfunctional baseball players would be
a desirable destination.

We were set to meet later in the day. I think they were operating from the
notion that we really only had 48 hours to do this, since Thursday was
Thanksgiving.


Tuesday: Jed Hoyer, Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein for the Sox, and Shonda
and I representing ourselves. Going in without an agent was something we were
both very comfortable with, but we were also using Ed Hayes of Fox Rothschild
in Philadelphia as our legal consultant. Ed is a player agent as well as an
attorney and has been a close family friend for over a decade. His help has
been crucial to us as our family has grown, and he is still a very close
friend. Ed was there to check out any language I didn't understand or wasn't
comfortable with.

The Sox show up and we all sit in our formal living room for the first day.
There was a lot of 'bringing up to speed' done on the team’s part. Theo went
out of his way to show me their 'tech,' how they scouted and the tools with
which their players were already equipped and the tools with which they were
going to be equipped going forward.

This was probably a much bigger deal than any of them realized at the time.
This was a crucial piece of the puzzle for me professionally. I had always
done this work on my own. I had worked with a company in California for years
compiling all of my video and at this point had video of every at-bat and
every hitter I had faced on the hard drive of whichever laptop I was using at
the time. Now they were able to offer in-house services that would allow me
to do nothing more than watch the video on hardware that would require no IT
work from me. Huge HUGE deal to me.

That question answered, I was presented with Bill James' research. Fenway was
in fact a much 'friendlier' park for pitchers than I had thought, and I had
been pitching in this enormous bandbox for 3-plus years at Bank One without
ever really knowing it! I knew the ball traveled far differently in the park
with the roof open than it did with it closed, but I guess I never realized
just how bad of a pitchers’ park it really was when compared to others

So two 'issues' were settled for me before we'd even started to talk 'Turkey'
regarding a contract.


Intermission, A weird occurrence: A myriad of weird events ended up being
sprinkled throughout these next three days. Event No. 1 happened about right
here.

As we were getting settled into the living room my cell phone rang. It
happened to be a G.M. of another team.

Basically, I was asked if I was in discussions with the Sox—which I was—and
what the status of those talks was. I didn't offer much insight other than to
say we were talking. The G.M. told me that his team did not want me to sign
with the Red Sox and whatever could be done to stall the negotiations and run
out the deadline would be much appreciated. I was also told this team would
have a deal in place the minute we hit that deadline and would offer a better
deal than whatever was being tabled.

The call was not really that surprising given how often teams cross
boundaries with players and with each other. This was a very good guy I knew
just a little, someone well respected in the game.

It was at that point I realized that the pool of teams 'thinking' they could
get involved was larger than I had publicly let out, something that was, in a
way, troubling I guess.

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