Friday, May 12
By Sean McAdam
Special to ESPN.com
When February arrived and Gary Gaetti still had no place to go, he figured it was a sign his baseball career had come to a quiet end.
At 41, Gaetti was an aging free agent and his job inquiries had yielded no results. It seemed like a good time to begin thinking about life after baseball.
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| CAREER STATISTICS |
| G |
HR |
RBI |
AVG |
Hits |
Runs |
| 2502 |
360 | 1340 |
.255 | 2280 |
1130 | |
|
There was a farm to look after and children to watch play baseball.
Then, just when Gaetti had come to grips with the prospect of retirement, an unlikely invitation surfaced from the Red Sox. The same Red Sox who had an incumbent (and surgically repaired) John Valentin at third with hot prospect Wilton Veras behind him, patiently waiting his turn.
Lacking any other options to keep playing, Gaetti accepted the minor-league deal. There were no promises, but at the least, he would get a chance to showcase himself to other teams.
Plus, Gary Gaetti wasn't ready to say goodbye. Being fired -- or in his case, not wanted -- was one thing. But Gaetti loved the game too much to just quit.
Still, on the flight to Florida, Gaetti battled self-doubt.
"I asked myself, 'Am I doing the right thing?' " recounted Gaetti recently. "Am I going to embarrass myself?"
Those were reasonable questions to ask, given that Gaetti is among the oldest players in the game, and particularly relevant after he hit a career low .204 last year for the Chicago Cubs.
"People ask me, 'Why don't you quit?' And my answer is always the same: 'Why don't you quit watching?' "
If fans return to the game each spring, Gaetti is determined to play as long as he can, even in a diminished capacity. He's no longer the All-Star third baseman, capable of blasting 30 homers or knocking in better than 100 runs, as he did a few times.
But Gaetti has decided he will stick around as long as baseball will have him.
"My feeling is," he said a bit defiantly, "I'm going to make someone tell me that it's time to go home. I'm going to keep the uniform on as long as I can and make them tear if off me."
His quest for a 19th major league season seemed quixotic at best a few weeks ago. The bid appeared all but doomed in early March when, just as the exhibition games were about to start, his surgically repaired knee began to swell, necessitating a draining process and a week of lost time in the trainer's room.
Maybe, Gaetti remembers feeling, this wasn't such a good idea after all.
But in time, the swelling and soreness in the knee was reduced and Gaetti returned to action. Still unable to play third, Gaetti nevertheless got some at-bats as a DH and some occasional time at first.
He still shows above-average bat speed at the plate, and is hitting a respectable .280 (7-for-25) with two home runs in Grapefruit League play. Two-and-a-half weeks into the exhibition schedule, Gaetti's bid to stay in the big leagues, though still a longshot, isn't as outlandish as it seemed a month ago.
The Red Sox have already wavered on purchasing the contract of Marty Cordova, the man thought to be a shoo-in as an extra bat off the bench. Michael Coleman, another possibility, was optioned back to Pawtucket.
And in what he promises is his final year, Gaetti's given a good account of himself.
"If it was obvious that I couldn't hit, I'd be gone," he said. "Gone by my own choice. But I still feel I can do certain things well. I can pinch-hit. And I don't see anybody throwing the ball by me.
"Now, there are going to be times when I'm going to get beat with a breaking ball. But that happens to everyone. I've heard people say, 'You'll know it's time when you can't catch up to the fastball. But that hasn't happened."
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“ |
People ask me,
'Why don't you quit?' And my answer is always the same: 'Why don't you quit
watching?' ” |
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— Gary Gaetti |
In the next 10 days, Gaetti will learn his fate. He has already told the Red Sox that he won't accept an assignment to Pawtucket, not because he feels he's too good for the minor leagues, but because he doesn't want to take valuable playing time away from a prospect.
But if the Red Sox think he can help, Gaetti will gladly stay around. Having been in the National League for the past four years, he hasn't seen the new ballparks in Seattle, or the one that will open next month in Detroit. One last farewell tour, a six-month long goodbye would be nice.
"There are some other things in my life I want to do," he said. "But I've still got the game in my blood. My wife encouraged me to give it another try when the Red Sox called. She told me I've got an open door and to walk through it and see what happens."
Bombers control fate of others
At the trading deadline, the Yankees traditionally are the seat of power in the American League, affecting the talks all around the league. Two years ago, the team's savvy involvement in the Randy Johnson sweepstakes led to the Mariners dealing Johnson out of the American League.
It happened again last spring when the Yanks showed just enough interest in Chuck Finley to the point where the Indians felt the Angels had upped the asking price too high. It was the Yankees' intent all along to keep Finley out of Cleveland, since he had a track record of being tough on New York and the Yankees didn't want to have to face him in a playoff series.
This spring, it's happening again. While the Yanks tied up the Angels on a deal involving Jim Edmonds, they kept other teams on hold. Oakland, and to a lesser extent Seattle, each had an interest in Edmonds, but those teams were left waiting while Anaheim exhausted all of its possibilities with the Yankees.
For the time being, the Yanks aren't willing to move their two most tradable commodities -- pitcher Ramiro Mendoza and infield prospect Alfonso Soriano.
But later in the season, that could change, particularly if the club's starting rotation begins to show its age. The Yankees will be well positioned to offer an auctioning team a pitcher who could step into most rotations (Mendoza) and a potential star in the middle infield (Soriano); few teams could match that package.
Around the Junior Circuit
The Mariners had trouble finding a suitable left fielder when Ken Griffey was in center, and now that Griffey is gone, they're no more successful. Seattle, which has excess pitching (John Halama) to deal, has failed to make deals for Edmonds, Kansas City's Johnny Damon and Minnesota's Matt Lawton. More recently, the M's have turned to Detroit's Bobby Higginson.
The hand injury to rookie Aaron Myette was costly in more ways than one for the White Sox. They were counting on Myette to be one of their starters -- if not out of spring training, then by midseason -- to go with Kip Wells. Now that's on hold as Myette recovers from a broken bone, suffered when he punched a door in frustration after a poor spring outing. Worse, it may make it more difficult for the Sox to move veteran James Baldwin, who had been attracting some interest. Any team obtaining Baldwin might want to put him in storage until the All-Star break. For reasons Baldwin can't explain, he's traditionally been horrid in the first half. Last year, he was 4-9, 6.82 before the break, and 8-4, 3.56 after. Over the last five years, the same trend appears: 20-23, 5.85 in the first half; 28-18, 4.52 in the second.
The Red Sox are miffed with the way the Orioles handle spring training schedule issues. Last March, the O's backed out of a scheduled game between the two at the 11th hour to prepare for their trip to Cuba, forcing the Sox to scramble to find a replacement game. Then, last Sunday, the O's refused to cancel a game in Fort Lauderdale despite heavy rain and a wet forecast for the rest of the day. The O's told the Red Sox shortly before 10 a.m. that the game could be played with a delayed starting time, so the Sox boarded a bus for a trip across Alligator Alley. Two hours later, they arrived to find the field completely unplayable -- it hadn't been covered overnight -- and had to turn around and return to Fort Myers, losing a day of work in the process.
Sean McAdam of the Providence Journal-Bulletin covers the American League for ESPN.com. |  |
