Is Eckersley available ?
Dennis Eckersley will go into
Coopertown next month and
he is only 50 ! I mean Julio
Franco is presently playing
getting regular paychecks from
the Atlanta Braves and is
receiving his Major League
pension and Rickey Henderson
is coming back (he is at Newark,NJ)
By Amaury Pi-GonzálezBilly Beane is not trying
to trade Barry Zito as
much as some people
keep telling me in the streets
or trying to get Guillermo
Mota from the Dodgers
for Eric Karros who
wants to go back
and have Karros Day
when he retires in L.A.
This “position”called
-closers- is imitated but
very few are real closers.
Gagné,Rivera,Percival
and a guy by the last
name of Foulke in Boston,
those are real closers.
Most anybody else is an
impostor.
I ran into a Boston Red
Sox fan in SBC this past
weekend and he told me
about the A’S: “they will
choke at the end again
this year”. A Red Sox
fan talking about choking ?
Billy Beane got Artthur
Rhodes hoping against
hope that for the money
he could be the “closer”
with the 2004 Athletics.
The Athletics wanted
Keith Foulke but Beane
and the A’S do not believe
in paying $7 or $8 million
or more per year for a
quality closer. You know the
old saying: “you get what
you paid for”.
I remember covering
Denis Eckersley whole
career since he arrived
in Oakland and was made
a reliever. The way Tony
LaRussa’s team was put
together, very rarely
did Eck had to pitch
to more than one, maybe
two batters. But it seems
to me that the A’S ’04 model
need a closer than can
pitch at least the whole
ninth inning.
Closers do not grow on
trees and specially at
the middle of the season
it might not be easy to
find that person than
could fit in the Athletics
bullpen.
On the West side of the
Bay, the Giants have
a closer, but he is
home watching his team
play on television.
Rob Nenn is one of the
very best but he probably
will not pitch at all this
season. Felipe Alou
is a good manager
but he is not a Magician,
and he might be able to
pull a Herges out of a
hat but not a Nenn
in the near future.
The Giants situation
however, is not as
difficult as the A’S.
The NL West is the
weakest division in
all of baseball and
with 84 wins somebody
is going to be the
“champion”of the
division. Therefore,
Felipe has managed his
bullpen as good as any
manager alive could do
and I know Felipe since
his playing days and I
use to talk to him when
he was a player with….
…the Oakland A’S at the
end of his career and I
knew he was going to be
a mananger someday.
But again, as good as
Felipe is, he cannot
convert water into
wine or split the Bay
in two and walk accross
it !
Closers are a rare
commodity. One that
is on his way lives in
Anaheim, his name is
Francisco RodrÃguez
aka K-Rod. He is
22 and has stuff that
should be ruled
illegal. Yet, he is
the set up guy for
an animal called
Percival.
Actually Los Angeles
has two of the very best
the Animal Percival in
Anaheim and the Beast
Gagné in Dodger blue.
The A’S should just
give up on looking for
a closer and designate
one of their fine young
pitchers as a closer.
Harden could do.
Do you really need
a 5-man rotation ?
The Giants do not have
that luxury at this time
and might have to
go with what they have
in the second half and
pray that a guy like
Noah Lowry can comeback
and pitch as good as he did
in his last start against
the Red Sox.
——————————————————-
Amaury Pi-González is on his 10th season
as Spanish play by play announcer
for the S.F Giants over KZSF 1370 AM
during selected home weekend games
and on his 2nd season as Spanish
play by play for the Seattle Mariners
Spanish radio network, with ex second
baseman Julio Cruz doing color,
see: www.spanishmariners.net
Born in Cuba Amaury was
Spanish radio play by
play announcer for the
Oakland A’S for 17 seasons.
Amaury was elected to the Cuban
Sports Hall of Fame as a broadcaster
on February 8, 2004 in Miami and
is presently the Vice President for
The Hispanic Heritage Baseball
Museum, a non profit organization
founded in San Francisco in 1999.
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