Merkin and the Crew Have a Little Fun

[Gregory Pratt]

Some of it, perhaps, ridicules us, or at least some of us. I don't care. I can have fun at my own expense and this whole thing is amusing.

 

Why I Love This Job

 

You know when you are having a bad day, week, month, season, year, (etc) there are those moments that bring a smile to your face and remind you why you love your job. I had one of those today from about 2:30 until 4 pm. Midway through it dawned on me ... blog it.

 

So here it goes ...

 

I was in Ozzie's office with he and Joey around 2:30 pm. Major League Baseball has an announcement tomorrow about Ozzie and a very neat program, and I needed to run it past Ozzie. He was showering, shaving and getting ready for batting practice as we talked. He read the release and quote from Commissioner Selig and laughed. "This is good," he said. (You'll need to read it on our site around noon tomorrow, but the release will be typical Ozzie, the side some people rarely see or recognize).

 

Everyone headed outside for special batting practice. The sun was shining ... for a time ... and I sat on the dugout bench (you know where Ozzie sits during games) with Rick Hahn, our assistant GM, and Ken Williams. Those two had just gotten done with pre-draft (it's Thursday) meetings.

 

Scotty Pods was taking BP as Ozzie threw. Oney and Ozney Guillen also took turns in the cage. Pods is very close, read that as verrrry close, to starting a rehab stint at Class AAA. He needs to be able to play the outfield down there since Brian Anderson is currently a DH due to a sore arm.

 

Our coaches were out fielding and Don Cooper was running laps with a walkman on as balls dropped around him.

 

The Food Network logo was on the scoreboard (aside: they are filming an episode of Dinner Impossible here tonight. The star, Robert Irvine, a culinary master and Royal Marine, doesn't know it yet but he is going to be brought to the ballpark, joined by sous chef Ron Kittle and will be charged with cooking a gourmet meal for 150 out of our center field concession stand. You know we have the best food in baseball, tonight it will be gourmet quality).

 

Anyway, then a couple of amateur players took turns in the cage as Ozzie continued to throw. One hit a couple of balls out to left.

 

"We need to hurry up," Greg Walker said. "Roger (Bossard) said it's going to rain in 20 minutes."

 

"You're on the clock," Williams yelled to Bossard. "You haven't been right very often this year," he chided.

 

"Yeah, how about this," Guillen said. "The GM calls the groundskeeper up this morning and says we want to use the field. The groundskeeper tells him 8:30 in the morning. The GM! Who owns this field? We need to ask the groundskeeper when we can play?"

 

"Hey, I need to take care of my field," Bossard countered to Guillen. "I water four times a day. One bad hop and you'd be all over me."

 

Meanwhile, AJ ventured out into our dugout.

 

"Who are these guys?" he asked about the amateurs.

 

"New catchers," came the answer.

 

"Hey," Williams yelled at his catcher, the old one, AJ. "What's with trying to hit all the home runs? When we got you, I said you could win a batting title here ... hit .300, 12 home runs. Now, all of a sudden you are hitting .260 with 20 home runs. Hit some singles to left and you might just win a batting title."

 

"What's that on your finger?" AJ responded. "Remember, we got that because I swung real hard and missed."

 

And he walked away.

 

At that point our pitching staff wandered out to take batting practice.

 

"Make sure you stretch," Guillen shouted to them. "I don't want anyone to get hurt."

 

"Contreras," Williams yelled at, well, Contreras. "You're the oldest guy out there, do something. Bend. Touch your toes. Stretch. Something."

 

Contreras just smiled at him.

 

"Don't just smile, do something."

 

Kenny took a couple of phone calls from other GMs while we were sitting there.

 

"Careful," I said, as media people walked past.

 

"What am I going to say?" KW fired back at me with a smile. "If someone asks me if I've talked about a player, I'll just say ... is it a good player? Because if it is, then I've talked about him."

 

Then it turned colder and dark and looked like rain.

 

I remind myself I do this for a living.

 

Oops, I meant Reifert

[Whitewashed in '05]

LOL at AJ.

[max power]

I thought ozzie was to blame because the sox aren't having any fun?

[fathom]

I thought ozzie was to blame because the sox aren't having any fun?

 

Well, he was the person who yesterday said he was going to make some changes so the guys would have fun.

[Gregory Pratt]

That's not what he said.

[fathom]

That's not what he said.

 

I could have sworn that he said he was going to make some changes and manage differently because these guys weren't having enough fun on the field.

[SoxFan1]

I could have sworn that he said he was going to make some changes and manage differently because these guys weren't having enough fun on the field.

He did. His exact words were:

 

"If this is my last year here, then I'm gonna have fun. I gotta change my style. I gotta have some fun."

[Gregory Pratt]

How can you say, "He did" and then repost his exact words where he says, "If this is my last year here, then I'm gonna have fun."

 

I took it to mean, "I'm going to kill myself worrying so much about this team after every loss."