Daily Archives: October 22, 2008

It’s strangely fitting that the Phillies and Rays are meeting in the latter’s first World Series. When then-Devil Rays general manager Chuck LaMar was assembling what would be the inaugural Rays roster in late 1997, he decided to build his team around pitching and defense. Any good defensive team needs a strong defensive shortstop, so LaMar worked out a deal with the Phillies to draft a young outfielder out of the Astros’ system in that November’s expansion draft and flip him to Philadelphia for the Phillies good-field/no-hit shortstop Kevin Stocker.

Stocker had taken over the Phillies shortstop job as a rookie in July of their pennant-winning season of 1993 and had since established himself as one of the game’s best defenders at the position. A 27-year-old switch-hitter who wouldn’t price himself off the team, Stocker was exactly what LaMar was looking for to anchor his new team’s infield. The problem was that LaMar had failed to notice the steep drop off in Stocker’s defense during the 1997 season. Stocker’s glove recovered in 1998, but he had his worst season at the plate, hitting just .208/.282/.313, and his season was mercifully ended a month early when his hand was broken by a pitch. The next year his bat picked up, but his glove work declined again, and knee tendonitis ended his season soon after the All-Star break.

That winter, LaMar scrapped his defense-first concept, signing aging sluggers Greg Vaughn and Vinnie Castilla to join Jose Canseco and original Ray Fred McGriff in the Tampa lineup. Stocker, the symbol of the Rays’ abandoned approach of just two years earlier, was released in May. Despite LaMar’s shift in focus, the Devil Rays of 2000 once again finished a distant last in the American League in runs scored. Making things worse, the young outfielder Lamar had used as currency to acquire stocker was a 23-year-old Bobby Abreu, who hit .312/.409/.497 as the Phillies’ right fielder in the Rays’ inaugural season of 1998 and proceeded to perform at a Hall of Fame level over his eight and a half seasons in Philadelphia.

Now, a decade later, LaMar is the Phillies’ scouting director, and his team is in the World Series against a Rays’ team that produced its first winning season, first playoff berth, first division title, and first pennant in part due to a renewed focus on pitching and defense. The signature player in that renewed focus is Jason Bartlett, a good-field/no-hit shortstop who was acquired for a talented young outfielder. The trick being that Bartlett wasn’t the key player in the deal that brought him to Tampa Bay from the Twins, righty starter Matt Garza was, and the outfielder he was traded for, Delmon Young, is no Bobby Abreu, which just goes to prove that intention is only as good as its execution.

To be fair, LaMar deserves to have a better legacy in Tampa Bay. It was under Lamar that the Rays drafted Aubrey Huff, Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, James Shields, B.J. Upton, Andy Sonnanstine, and Young, and it was Lamar who fleeced the Mets in the Scott Kazmir deal. Still, it took a change in ownership and an overhaul of the front office for the Rays to figure out how to make proper use of that bounty.

My point in all of this is that, even in a World Series in which the two combatants have just one prior championship between them (the lowest combined total since 1980 when the Phillies and Royals met, both looking for their first), there is still some history here.

For more from me on this match-up, check out my position-by-position breakdown and preview of Game 1, both up on SI.com.

By Jacob Luft

I was lucky as a kid in that my parents used to let me tag along on business trips. Oftentimes that meant New York City, though it could also be Chicago or D.C.. On one such trip to the Big Apple, I remember taking in the view atop the Empire State Building, looking west across the Hudson River and asking my dad, “What’s that over there?”

“Oh,” he replied, “that’s just New Jersey.”

(Little did he know he was talking to a future bridge-and-tunnel boy and proud resident of West Orange, N.J.!)

If mom and dad didn’t have time to take me out to see the sights themselves, they would leave me with my great aunt or some other family friend. Funny thing, though: I can’t recall ever being consulted on the destination. I was at the grownups’ mercy of what they considered to be a good time for a kid. That changed one day — I don’t remember the year, sometime in the mid-1980s — when my mom got in touch with an old friend of hers from the old country (Nicaragua) who volunteered to watch me for the day.

Upon picking me up at the hotel he asked, “Where do you want to go kid?”

That was my cue.

“Yankee Stadium.”

It was the dead of winter. I had heard the newsman on the TV say it would be in the teens with minus-7 wind chill. Suffice it to say, there was no baseball scheduled on this day. Don Mattingly was on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean bashing coconuts. He wasn’t bashing baseballs at the Stadium.

“Uh, you know it’s not open right?”

“I don’t care,” I said. “I just want to see it.”

“OK let’s go.”

He was kind enough to leave some frost on his windshield that morning for the benefit of a kid who had never seen snow, but it was more slush than anything at that point. Still, I was duly impressed. I recall crossing the river, heading toward the Bronx on the highway and seeing the big grey hulk of the Stadium rise up. He drove around in circles for a little while trying to afford me the best view possible. As many longtime Yankee fans have told me, the Stadium in the ’80s was drab and dreary, and that jibes with what I saw that day. From the outside it seemed a lifeless edifice, especially with heavy sleet providing all of 30 feet of visibility. But hey, that was The House That Ruth Built, and Lou Gehrig played there and so did Joe D. and Mickey Mantle and all those guys on the baseball cards I had back home in a shoebox. I was on Cloud 9 just being so near to hallowed ground for the first time.

Unable to gain access to the Stadium itself, we did what I considered to be the next best thing: We ate a McDonald’s a couple blocks away. Nothing like a Quarter Pounder, French Fries and a Coke to ease the sting. I remember the fries being extra salty, which went in perfect balance with the gritty neighborhood. And it wasn’t just any McDonald’s. It was a Yankee Stadium McDonald’s, with pictures of Gehrig and Ruth and other legends all over the wall. My pilgrimage felt complete.

“So,” my guide asked, “how about we go to the Statue of Liberty now?”

Jacob Luft is a senior editor at SI.com.

According to Joel Sherman, major league executives believe that Atlanta is a likely destination for Jake Peavy. Eh. So long he doesn’t wind up in the AL East (i.e. Boston), right?

In a recent chat at ESPN, Buster Olney answered a Yankee question:

Dave (NY): I know you’ve said Cashman wouldn’t make Tex a priority. How do things stand on that front? I’d rather have CC myself.

Buster Olney: Dave — they’ll make him an offer they’re comfortable with — say, 6 years, $18 million a year — but they won’t sniff the 10/200 that has been rumored. If the Red Sox or Orioles take Teixeira much higher than the Yankees, I don’t think they’ll chase it. On the other hand, all bets are off when it comes to CC — they’ll go crazy to get him.

And wouldn’t you know it, but Rob Neyer also fielded a Yankee question in his latest chat:

Josh (NY): Cano and Kennedy for Matt Kemp? Yankees need a center fielder and reports say the Dodgers love Cano.

Rob Neyer: One sticking point: I’m not sure Kemp is a center fielder for much longer. I think he’s about to grow out of the position (if he hasn’t already). Also, do the Dodgers need another young starter? Can’t Jamie McDonald be that guy if they want one?

Who out there is bully on Tex? What about CC? I don’t know that either will end up in New York, but if I had to pick between the two, I’d guess that the Yankees have a better shot at Teixeira. Whadda ya think?