SARASOTA, Fla. — Every year, spring training seems to present a personal highlight, and mine came last week in the form of a two-hour lunch break that featured great friendship, priceless stories and many laughs.
It started out to be a meetup with Bill Matthews, a former baseball coach at Eckerd College and now an official scorer with the Rays. Matthews was a longtime colleague and confidant during my almost quarter of a century working as an official scorer for Major League Baseball. Jeff Lantz, formerly with the Orioles’ public relations department who also had a short stint in the “hot seat” before becoming senior manager of communications for MLB, was No. 3 in the lineup.
Rick (he’ll always be “Arky” to me) Vaughn, the Orioles’ PR director for more than a decade and an original member of the Tampa Bay front office staff, became the cleanup hitter of the foursome as well as our top recruiter. Vaughn invited ESPN analyst, longtime friend and story-teller extraordinaire Tim Kurkjian to join the party as a surprise guest.
The stories flowed and hilarity ensued immediately. My long-held belief that nobody talks shop more than baseball people was fortified once again. Without apologies to the ritual itself, it was my best day of spring training by far — and there isn’t a close second.
Lantz, the “kid” of the group, did the math and concluded our little group totaled 209 years of baseball experience. I’m pretty sure there were at least that many stories. What a great treat!
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There was a great deal of irony involved in Albert Pujols accepting a one-year contract to return to St. Louis and finish his career with the Cardinals while the Yankees were wrestling with a decision about a possible long-term extension for Aaron Judge.
Don’t know how the rest of baseball looks at it, but it’s hard not to make comparisons between the dilemma the Yankees face in negotiations with Aaron Judge than the decision the Cardinals made a decade ago. Pujols, of course, got a 10-year, $240 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels that became the big poster example about the dangers of long-term deals.
Pujols was 31 years old at the time. Judge, who would become eligible for free agency next year, turns 30 shortly after the start of this season. It makes his case remarkably similar to Pujols, who averaged a .328 batting average, 40 homers and 120 runs batted in during 11 years with the Cardinals, only to see those numbers plummet to .256, 22 and 78 the next 10 years with the Angels.
The early numbers posted by certain Hall of Famer Pujols dwarf those of Judge, whose athleticism might make him a better long-term gamble but doesn’t figure to be enough to make up the difference in production. Being saddled with the last half of Giancarlo Stanton’s mammoth 10-year deal doesn’t help the situation, but the Yankees are being hard pressed by a demanding fan base to reward one of their own.
With Judge averse to carrying out negotiations once the season starts, this will be worth watching.
Jim Henneman can be reached at JimH@pressboxonline.com
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Jim Henneman