April Fools

Gary Sheffield really outdid himself this time. It takes real talent to get a club to release you and still collect your 14 million dollars. But the Tigers did just that and you have to wonder why. That’s a lot of money to just fritter away.

Ya see? It’s not just Jerry Jones who pays players big money only to let them go. Now it’s the Tigers and Gary Sheffield.

As has been widely reported, Sheffield has 499 homers in his 21-year career and he no doubt looked forward to hitting 500. Did he possibly try to negotiate for more money based on the added value of hitting his 500th in a Tigers uniform? With Sheffield, anything’s possible and that may be the only explanation that makes sense.

Even if their primary motive was to publicly insult Sheffield, 14 mill is a lot to spend just to make a statement.

Are they all crazy in Detroit? Well, there’s Jim Leyland, of course, who never cared too much about normality. Detroit is the Motor City and the home of other colossal failures such as General Motors. And let’s give the Detroit Lions their due. They’ve stunk out the joint for about a decade, at least.

This is really very mysterious. You have the fact of the matter, a fait accompli. Then you have the Yankee fans who all seem to hate him. Then you hear former teammates publicly saying that he’s a good team guy. Judging from some of the quotes attributed to good ol’ Gary, those teammates probably never had a nice long talk with him.

It certainly is entertaining. My only interest in Gary Sheffield stems from his fantasy numbers which had usually been very good. He was hurt a lot the last couple of years and things probably weren’t going to get that much better. But still, 14 million bucks?

At least the Tigers didn’t get a stimulus package.

Nor did the Broncos for that matter. They’re trading Jay Cutler, one of the top young quarterbacks in the game. The new management apparently didn’t worry about their quarterback’s sense of pride or loyalty when they offered him to the Patriots for Matt Cassell.

Bronco fans never question anything but even they will have a problem swallowing this little pill. What they get in exchange will ultimately determine just how badly their management miscalculated. I’d expect the Broncos to demand an established arm in any trade to minimize their downside risk, in terms of both performance and perception.

That would leave the Jets out of the mix. Of all the teams I’ve seen as potential suitors, a move to the Cleveland Browns would make the most sense. They’ve got two established quarterbacks in Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson. Taking a chance on either one would almost certainly yield better results than a trade for an Orton from the Bears or a Jackson from the Vikings, for example.

It’d also be somewhat ironic, having a dumb move started by a former Pats assistant (Josh McDaniels) and competed by a former Pats assistant (Eric Mangini). Whatever their football skills, their capacity for diplomacy, almost certainly handed down from Belichick, certainly diminishes their overall value as coaches.

Belichick’s genius for defense covers up a lot of trouble on the diplomacy front. What do McDaniels or Mangini bring to the table? We New Yorkers know what Mangini brought. Process, process, process … blah blah blah, and what appeared to be a general malaise that affected the whole team.

There are several other surprising things in the sports pages these days but nothing else that could be called April Fools jokes. Plaxico visiting Giants training headquarters was pleasantly surprising to me, while newbie Yankee centerfielder Brett Gardner getting the start over Melky Cabrera (or anyone else they could have acquired) was less of a shock.

Yankee centerfielders…..let’s see, the earliest one I actually remember is Joe DiMaggio. Then there was Mickey Mantle. Those two fellas alone manned the position for over 30 years, and I have to grudgingly admit they were probably the best centerfielders in the game except for the say-hey kid, Willie Mays.

But there were some other good ones since 1968, Bobby Murcer, Bernie Williams and Ricky Henderson come quickly to mind, and I’m anything but a Yankee fan. So it seems slightly incongruous that a Brett Gardner would get the chance to play there.

But maybe it’s not so strange. Joe D and Mickey were home grown and so were Murcer and Bernie Williams. Nobody ever became great without an opportunity and maybe Gardner will put up some numbers, if not on the order of a Mickey or a Joe D, maybe at least those of a Mickey Rivers. Would you believe Roberto Kelly?

Gardner had an inauspicious start in 2008 but I’m willing to forget that. He is hitting .385 in the spring though, and that’s not too shabby. But that dwarfs his minor league batting averages over the last few years. He batted .296 in his last year in AAA though, and scored 68 runs in 94 games.

That projects to 117 runs scored over 162 games. Imagine how happy the Bombers would be with that! He’ll probably steal about fifty bases too. He’s not a home run hitter but he doesn’t have to be in that lineup. Even if we discount those minor league numbers to major league probables, he’d still score about 100 runs.

So it’s April 1st, and if we can’t have the start of the regular season as we have had in other non-Classic years, it’s nice to at least have something to think about. The Knicks and Nets certainly haven’t done anything lately to hold our interest.

So be happy with what we have. Crazy managers, crazier general managers, and hopefully a continuation of some long traditions. But nothing really compares to Sheffield’s situation. He could even wind up have the last laugh. If money means anything, he ‘s already had the first.