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June 23, 2003

The Week In Quotes

June 16-22

by Ryan Wilkins

"Come the All-Star break... if we're in this thing, then you conclude that we're in the pennant race."
--David Glass, Royals owner (AP)

"I've always said I would be willing to make some short-term commitments if we've got a chance to win something."
--Glass

"If the price of getting a good middle reliever is trading (pitcher) Jeremy Affeldt, then my suggestion would be 'No.'"
--Glass, on not giving up too much for short-term success

"We don't want to jeopardize our future. You can't base everything on this year. That's the difference between big-market and small-market teams. Big-market teams have the luxury of making a lot of short-term decisions."
--Glass

"I can't say I'm overly concerned about anything. I think the concerns are short-term. We have been inconsistent offensively. I don't think Miguel (Tejada), Jermaine (Dye) and Eric Chavez are going to hit what they did in the first couple months... That's the great thing about baseball. It's the Belmont. It's the longest race. It's hard to sprint yourself to a first-place finish. It's too long."
--Billy Beane, A's general manager (Contra Costa Times)

"You have to adjust and go on... One guy doesn't make a team. There's proof of that with the guy in Texas."
--Pat Gillick, Mariners general manager, referring to Alex Rodriguez (Seattle Times)

THE ANTHONY YOUNG EXPERIENCE

"It's getting pretty hard not to think about it... I keep telling myself, 'At least I'm pitching pretty well.' Yeah, it does get in the back of your mind."
--Darrell May, Royals pitcher, who is winless in his last 16 starts (AP)

"I think I'm going to find a chicken head to hang in my locker and see if that will help."
--May

"I told Darrell, 'You might win 20 in the second half as good as you're pitching... Man, the second half can't come quick enough.'"
--Sean Lowe, Royals pitcher (AP)

CORKGATE, CONTINUED...

"It doesn't mean that everybody is going to like me, but some people really appreciate everything I've done for this game and support me 100 percent."
--Sammy Sosa, Cubs outfielder (AP)

"I have to deal with that for the rest of my life, no question... But I'm only human. I'm not the only guy in this world that made a mistake."
--Sosa, on being caught with a corked bat

"I'll say it again: Hopefully they'll forget and just let me continue to make people happy."
--Sosa

"At the beginning, it was very tough for me to see all the things that they put (in the media) about me because of a simple mistake... I mean, it was a mistake. I haven't killed anybody. They got me up there like I'm a criminal."
--Sosa

"To me, it's a dead issue... He served his time. There's no need to dwell on it. I said all I need to say about it right after it happened. Some people believe him, some people don't. I'm not going to say what I believe."
--Danny Graves, Reds pitcher, on Sosa (AP)

DEVELOPING SUCCESS

"If you look at the college scores, with those aluminum bats, you know that no matter how good a pitcher is, he's going to know what it feels like to back up third (as hitters string hits together)... Pitchers learn that they're going to give up runs, so they have to be able to shrug that off. That's a very important lesson. If you look at our pitchers, you'll see that they're able to put a bad game behind them when they take the mound the next time."
--Rick Peterson, A's pitching coach, on college pitchers (SF Chronicle)

"A good high school pitcher has probably never been in a situation where he's been hit hard. A lot of them, when they're pitching in the minors and run into trouble, they can't handle that."
--Peterson

"We try to be very careful about putting a young pitcher in the right spot, because we don't just want to bring him up, we want him to stay and succeed."
--Peterson

"It's not that we insist our pitchers always throw the same way... If you look at Hudson, Mulder and Zito, you'll see that they all have different motions. But their basics are all the same. It's like high performance cars. On the outside, they may have very different styles, but under the hood, it's all the same basic stuff."
--Peterson

THE REST

"I've never kept detailed notebooks of how pitchers throw me because I can remember exactly how Graves pitched me even when he was at the University of Miami... I'm not Rain Man, but I know if a guy has thrown a first-pitch strike on a curve seven out of the eight last times with a runner on second."
--Mike Lowell, Marlins third baseman (Miami Herald)

"I go under the assumption he's going to hit a homer every time."
--Ken Macha, A's manager, on Barry Bonds (Contra Costa Times)

"We threw a one-hitter at them last night, they threw a one-hitter at us tonight. It just goes to show you can't win too many games with one hit."
--Jack McKeon, Marlins manager, on being one-hit by the Mets (AP)

"He's the Rolls Royce of pitching."
--Lou Piniella, Devil Rays manager, on Roger Clemens (AP)