SEATTLE -- We know one thing. Clifford Floyd has as much chance of forgetting his first All-Star Game as Neil Armstrong has of forgetting his first ride to the moon.
He was off the team. He was on the team. He was off the team. He was on the team.
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| 2001 SEASON STATISTICS |
| GM |
HR |
RBI |
R |
SB |
AVG |
| 83 |
21 |
70 |
73 |
12 |
.342 |
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First, he and Bobby Valentine were like some WWF act. Then all was forgiven. Then all wasn't forgiven anymore, and they seemed headed for a steel-cage brawl. Then there they were Monday at All-Star Workout Day, doing their best to achieve peace on the National League's portion of the earth.
"I don't think I'll be giving him any hugs like he's my brother or anything," the Marlins' gifted left fielder said. "But I wanted to be here. I'm here. No hard feelings. I just want to put the whole thing to rest."
Well, some day he will. Some day, he and Valentine both will.
But Monday wasn't that day.
Nearly a week later, Floyd still was clearly stung by the bizarre path that led him to this game. By the war of words with Valentine that got him into this mess. By the confusion over the phone call Valentine placed to him last week in which Floyd still is sure he was told he had made the team.
By the shock and embarrassment he felt after learning he hadn't made the original roster.
By the $16,000 he spent on plane tickets to Seattle that the airlines had no intention of giving back.
And, in particular, by Valentine's needless attack on Floyd's highly respected agent, Seth Levinson, simply for telling a reporter that Floyd was convinced, after talking with Valentine, that he was going to Seattle.
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I kept saying to myself, 'How could this be a misunderstanding? You can misunderstand one word, maybe two words. But not four sentences. ” |
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— Cliff Floyd |
Fortunately, in the end, it all turned out OK. Rick Reed got hurt. Valentine needed an outfielder to supplement Larry Walker, who could DH but was physically unable to play in the field. So Floyd wound up an All-Star after all.
But one thing no one can do in real life is wind back the videotape and pretend some stuff never happened. And for Clifford Floyd, this is one of those occasions.
"I don't know what the fallout of this will be," Floyd said Monday. "All I ever wanted the whole time was the truth. That's it. I didn't like hearing my agents called liars, because they're not. I've known them for 10½ years. They're like my second family. He didn't call me a liar. He called my agents a liar. And I said, 'How can he call them a liar when I gave them the information?'"
Floyd said he has replayed his conversation with Valentine over and over in his mind these last few days. He is still convinced he heard what he heard.
"I kept saying to myself, 'How could this be a misunderstanding?'" Floyd said. "You can misunderstand one word, maybe two words. But not four sentences."
Levinson, whose integrity and reputation in the industry are as unblemished as any agent in the business, declined comment Monday. Valentine, meanwhile, was doing his best to tap-dance around the issue.
Asked before Monday's workout what he would say to Floyd, Valentine made it clear he wasn't thrilled by the question.
"Oh," he said, sarcastically, "probably, 'Congratulations. Welcome. Let's go get 'em.' (Pause.) What do you think I'm going to say? (Pause for glare at the questioner.) What would make a good story?"
Valentine went on to say that too much has been made of this soap opera, then dropped the subject. But only time will make this brouhaha go away, not a suggestion that it was the media's fault.
"You know what? I wasn't going to say anything (after he wasn't named to the original squad)," Floyd said. "People even asked me how come I didn't bash him the next day. But the thing is, I've got family. And my mom keeps me on track. The first thing she said was, 'You'd better not say a word.' So yeah, I was mad about it. But I had to grow up.
"Oh, I wanted to talk. Don't get me wrong. I wanted to say everything. But I know sometimes you have to sit back and understand why things happen. But then it came out that he was saying he got misunderstood, and he called my agent a liar. So I had to talk. I had to cover my back."
Floyd did say he regretted the original mark that triggered this feud -- when he called Valentine a "stupid manager" after getting drilled in the elbow during a weekend-long beanball war in May.
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All-Star Triviality
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This will be Joe Torre's fourth game as All-Star manager. Can you name the six managers who managed more than that?
(Answer at bottom.)
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"That," he said, "was out of character for me. When you're mad, when you're angry, things are said that you don't mean. ... But what if I broke my elbow? That's why I was mad."
But that was then. Now, Floyd is looking for a Geneva peace pact, so he can go back to being just a baseball player -- and a first-time All-Star.
"I just really want to enjoy this," he said. "I just want to sit back, have some fun and enjoy the experience. Hopefully, I'll play. But if I don't play, I'll just suck it up, enjoy it and go to the top step and wave to my parents."
His parents, by the way, got to use two of those eight plane tickets he bought last week. He gave three others to his brother, his sister and his girlfriend. Maybe that was fate -- because he tried to return all of them.
"I tried, but the airlines don't care who you are," Floyd laughed. "They could care less. They told me I could use them for a year or change them for $50. So I figured what the heck. Somebody will get some great Christmas presents. I only used five. I've got three left. So somebody still might get some great Christmas presents."
It's a good bet, though, that one of those somebodies won't be Bobby Valentine.
Miscellaneous rumblings
Oh yeah. Let's not forget another fun All-Star couple -- AL manager Joe Torre and his former right-handed set-up machine, Jeff Nelson.
A year ago, Torre didn't name Nelson to the All-Star team, and Nelson blew up. Which wouldn't have been a good thing for Yankees love and peace under any circumstances. But he blew up to the New York Post. Which was even a worse thing for Yankees love and peace.
A year later, Torre again didn't name Nelson -- now with the Mariners -- to his original team, despite an amazing first half in which Nelson allowed only 15 hits in 37 innings, held opposing hitters to an absurd .120 average and piled up 58 strikeouts in those 37 innings.
This time, Nelson kept his mouth zipped. Good idea. Saturday, he wound up being named to the team to replace the injured Mariano Rivera.
Asked about that outburst last year, Nelson said: "You learn from it when you make mistakes. That's why I didn't say anything this year. You say something to the New York media, and it lasts and lasts. Then you've got all the ESPN people saying Joe and I had a big run-in. But the fact is, I played five years for him in New York, and I owe him a lot.
"When something like that happens in New York, it seems like it carries on and on. But you just learn from your mistakes, and you keep on living. I saw Joe when we played in New York. We hugged. And we're fine."
After all the grief Torre and Valentine took for their All-Star selections -- and non-selections -- it might be time to take this job out of the managers' hands and place it in the hands of a committee.
That idea has been kicked around a lot in the last week. And if its proponents are looking for a campaign manager, Mariners manager Lou Piniella -- who will serve as an AL coach in this game -- will readily volunteer.
"I think it's a good idea, to be honest with you," said Piniella, who managed the NL team in the '91 All-Star Game. "The way it works now, when people don't get selected, the manager takes the brunt of it. But there are only so many people you can take. You get to take 30, and it always seems like there are six or seven who are deserving who don't get in.
"If you put it on the manager, that manager's concerned with the pennant race. He's concerned with his baseball team. To have the brunt of all this fall on him, I think, is a little unbelievable. There should be a committee from the commissioner's office, and let them handle this. It isn't fair to put it all on the manager."
Baseball also continues to mull a proposal to have the winning league in the All-Star Game determine home-field advantage in the World Series. But Torre, who stands a heck of a chance to be affected by that proposal, cast the loudest "no" vote in America on that one.
"Let me tell you," Torre said. "Ninety percent of the players on the All-Star team are not worried about where the World Series is going to be played."
Now presenting your American League cleanup hitter ... uh, Bret Boone?
You betcha. Manny Ramirez will bat third. Juan Gonzalez will hit fifth. Edgar Martinez will bat seventh. And Boone will hit fourth -- seven months after being non-tendered by the Padres. Is this a great country, or what?
Asked what he would have thought if someone had told him it would turn out this way the day the Padres cut him loose, Boone couldn't help but chuckle.
"I'd have laughed," he said. "Heck, I'm laughing now. Me hitting cleanup? Yeah, sure. I've had a good first half. But I'm still laughing."
Unlike the men around him in the middle of that All-Star lineup, Boone owns exactly zero All-Star at-bats. He made the NL team in '99 as a reserve but never got off the bench.
"I just sat there, really cheering loud," he said. "I had my pom-poms out."
Tony Gwynn was in uniform Monday, taking batting practice. But unlike Cal Ripken, Gwynn won't be getting any at-bats in the game itself. When the commissioner's office decided to add Gwynn to the team, it was purely on an honorary basis.
It wouldn't exactly be embarrassing to have Gwynn come to the plate one last time. But he and the commish, Bud Selig, both said it was better to do it this way.
"I think the honor he got by being here was what he wanted and was satisfying to all the parties involved," Selig said. "We wanted to make sure he was here, and here in a way they were comfortable."
Gwynn, who just came off the disabled list, concurred.
"This is the way I wanted to be here," he said. "I didn't want to take a spot away from somebody on the National League side. ... I'm just happy about being here. I don't have to take that ceremonial last at-bat in an All-Star Game. I've played in 13 All-Star Games, and I've had plenty of at-bats, and I've stunk up the joint. Just let these young guys go out and play. They've earned the right to be here."
Gwynn's definition of "stinking out the joint": 7-for-29 (.241) in his 13 All-Star Games.
Ripken, on the other hand, has the lowest batting average (.240) on either team. But it was hard to find anyone who thought he shouldn't be playing in this game.
"One of the reasons I'm glad he's here is that I'm glad to see Cal on the field one last time," said his one-time teammate in Baltimore, Curt Schilling. "Even as a young pitcher, Cal had an impact on me. I got spoiled watching him. Every shortstop I was around for the rest of my career, I've watched and compared with Cal."
"It's a great tribute to a great player," said Piniella. "He's played the game with passion and emotion. He's played the game the way it was meant to be played. For him not to have been here would have been a travesty."
The leading vote-getter in the 2001 All-Star voting had never seen a major-league baseball game in person until three months ago. And the amazing Ichiro said Monday that he never thought that the first time he saw an All-Star Game, he would be playing in it.
"I didn't envision this at all," he said. "I envisioned seeing this ballgame, just watching this ballgame. I'd like to be part of the fans. I'd like to be at an All-Star Game, watching with them. I'm telling you the truth."
Ichiro said he'd been trying to figure out a way to attend this game for about five years, but never could pull it off because it came in the middle of the Japanese season.
"So then I always wanted to come here to watch the World Series," he said, "so I could watch how major leaguers play, so I could feel this kind of baseball."
He never did that, either. So he just stopped by and piled up 134 hits by the break -- more than all but five players in history.
Asked if he would like to strike out Ichiro -- who has whiffed only 23 times all year in 386 at-bats -- designated NL starter Curt Schilling said it sounded good to him.
"One thing a veteran pitcher told me a long time ago," Schilling said, "is that, as a starting pitcher, you've got the ability to shut up the stadium. I've got the ability to shut up a whole country for a few minutes."
For the first time in history, three set-up men will be hanging out in the same All-Star bullpen -- Nelson, Mike Stanton of the Yankees and Paul Quantrill of the Blue Jays. Which may be a sign that one of these days, set-up men will no longer be able to eat dinner, go to the mall or wander around airports in their customary anonymity.
"Not many starters go into the seventh inning very consistently anymore," Quantrill said. "And so many games are won between the sixth and ninth innings that you need these guys to get the ball to a Billy Koch or a Troy Percival."
And you do need these guys. But you also need a stat to measure what they do. Let's just say "holds" isn't it.
"Being a set-up man is my job, and I don't even know what a hold is," Quantrill said. "I've got nine of them, and I don't even know how I got them."
Well, we've got an idea. If hockey players can get an assist on a goal and basketball players can get an assist on a dunk, why can't set-up men get an assist on a save?
"Yeah, I'd go for assists," Quantrill said. "They could call it: 'Assist in getting Koch on TV.'"
Useless information dept.
Eight Mariners in one All-Star Game, huh? Last team with eight all-stars: the '61 Yankees, in the second of the two All-Star Games they used to play in those days.
Other teams that had eight All-Stars:
1960 Pirates (both games)
1946 Red Sox
1939 Yankees (nine)
Last time the anti-Mariners -- the Tigers -- even had more than one All-Star: 1994 (when they had two, Travis Fryman and Mickey Tettleton).
For you multi-generational fans, when Bret Boone plays Tuesday, he'll make the Boones the first family ever to have three generations take part in the great All-Star panorama. His grandfather, Ray, played in two All-Star Games. His father, Bob, played in four -- and started the last All-Star Game played in Seattle, in 1979.
More Ichiro trivia: He'll be the first rookie to start an All-Star Game at any position since Hideo Nomo was the starting pitcher for the NL in 1995. He'll be the first rookie position player to start since Sandy Alomar Jr. was the AL's starting catcher in 1990. And he'll be the first rookie to start in the outfield since Tony Oliva in 1964.
Of course, the debate about whether this guy is a true rookie goes on. And Monday, while discussing Ichiro's ability to fit right into American baseball in general and the Mariners' clubhouse in particular, his manager, Piniella, slipped up and said: "He's not really a rookie. He's a seven-time batting champion over there."
All rookie-of-the-year voters have been advised to disregard that remark.
And if we are disregarding that last remark, we can also note that the four rookies in this game -- Ichiro, Philadelphia's Jimmy Rollins, St. Louis' Albert Pujols and Milwaukee's Ben Sheets -- are the most ever in any All-Star Game. Last time there were even three: 1995 (Nomo, Tyler Green, Carlos Perez).
Mike Hampton didn't get to take batting practice Monday. But his .313 batting average was higher than the average of 20 position players in this game and nine of the 18 starters -- including Alex Rodriguez (.310), Barry Bonds (.305), Sammy Sosa (.312) and Chipper Jones (.308).
With six home runs, Hampton also had outhomered two members of the AL starting lineup -- Ichiro (5) and Cal Ripken (4).
Jeff Nelson, a set-up man who has pitched exactly 37 innings, has more strikeouts this year than one of the starting pitchers in this game -- Minnesota's Joe Mays.
Nelson: 58 strikeouts, 37 innings
Mays: 54 strikeouts, 122 1/3 innings
The American League has won 10 of the last 13 All Star Games -- its best streak in the history of the game. Before that, the NL had won 22 of the previous 25.
Two great Ripken trivia questions: Name the last third baseman to be elected to start the game before Ripken moved to third? And name the last shortstop to be elected before Ripken kicked off his streak of 13 straight All-Star starts?
And the answers are: Wade Boggs (1996) and Robin Yount (1983).
Trivia answer
Casey Stengel (10), Walter Alston (9), Joe McCarthy (7), Sparky Anderson (5) Bobby Cox (5), Al Lopez (5).
Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com. Rumblings and Grumblings appears each Monday.
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