Pull up, find a comfortable place, circle around three times, and get settled...
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12.18.2004
Petey, honey, we're so over you as a pitcher... Good luck being on a losing team...
FOXSports.com - MLB - Martinez: 'I'm way over Schilling as a pitcher'
Martinez: 'I'm way over Schilling as a pitcher'
Enrique Rojas / Associated Press
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) - Pedro Martinez returned home Friday and bashed the team he led to a World Series title. He knocked the Boston Red Sox for their front-office moves and negotiating tactics, and predicted a rough season awaits.
"They will field the best bad team in baseball history," Martinez said at a news conference Friday.
In a story published in Friday's Boston Herald, Martinez discussed his displeasure with his former employer and the way the negotiations broke down. Martinez also disputed recent claims made by Curt Schilling, who said Martinez followed his own set of rules while with the Red Sox.
"I don't have my own set of rules or nothing," Martinez told the Herald. "When I'm going to get to the stadium late, I call, ``I'm doing this, I'm doing that.'' I let Francona know and he can answer those questions for you. That's very unfair for somebody to say that I had a different set of rules or that I'm a prima donna. Prima donnas don't perform the way I do, they don't work as hard as I do. I take pride in my work."
Martinez told the Herald he wanted a similar deal to Schilling's, at the very least.
"Schilling is 38, I'm only 33," Martinez told the Herald. "The fact that I had an off-year doesn't mean that I can be below Schilling. Still, with an off-year, I'm way over Schilling as a pitcher and I've pitched pretty much like Schilling the last few years, if you're going to talk about durability. Schilling's not taking anything away from me and they should have known the basics of the numbers, the performance, before they did it. More than the salary is the fact that the fans are the ones left hanging, and that's the sad part. I didn't want the fans to have to see me in another uniform."
Martinez also told the Herald that the Red Sox didn't give him enough attention, dating back to the '03 season.
"I'm not saying that the Boston Red Sox mistreated me, but what I'm saying is they should have shown a little more interest than they showed, even though they were negotiating and were probably being cautious,:" Martinez said. "But I was always honest about what I wanted, how I wanted it and I made a lot of sacrifices to give Boston the opportunity to keep me. I went way below my salary. At the time they picked up my option, that could have been taken away and reduced to $14.5 (million) and they would have had me still this year and probably for next year.
"I was willing to tear up the option and go to a new extension and take $14.5 million, or less than that, to stay in Boston. That was 2003, spring training."
One day after he was introduced by the New York Mets - who signed him to a four-year, $53 million contract - Martinez criticized the Red Sox for firing key employees, including team doctor Bill Morgan.
Martinez said he was "dumbfounded" to hear that fellow Dominican Manny Ramirez could be mentioned as possible trade bait after winning the World Series MVP.
"After giving seven great years, Jason Varitek, Derek Lowe and I were not signed," Martinez said.
Red Sox principal owner John Henry said the club "offered Pedro exactly what he said it would take to sign him" when team officials visited Martinez in the Dominican Republic on Dec. 8.
"Our organization went out of our way to treat Pedro with the greatest respect over the past three years. I am surprised and very disappointed by the continuing negative comments in that regard," Henry said Friday in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "Nevertheless, I wish him great success with the Mets."
"To be honest, I think John Henry wanted me back in Boston more than anybody else, but I don't know about the rest," Martinez told the Herald. "I can't tell you that. (Red Sox team president Larry) Lucchino seemed like he was trying. I don't know how well he and Henry are communicating, but it seems to me that Henry wanted me back. I don't think Theo really wanted me back."
The three-time Cy Young Award winner said the Mets "have shown more respect in days than Boston did in seven years."
Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein discounted the comments, and said Friday that Martinez is "a brilliant pitcher ... an emotional person as well."
"It doesn't bother me," Epstein said. "I don't necessarily define myself by what anyone says about me, let alone a player that we just didn't sign to bring back to Boston. We'll be fine as an organization.
"I just don't put much stock in that. It's a heat of the moment type thing," Epstein said. "I choose to look at the man, not one comment."
Martinez told the Herald that Epstein's arrogance during negotiations with Martinez's agent, Fernando Cuza, didn't help Boston's chances.
"That's what happened," Martinez told the Herald. "Theo got really arrogant on Fernando and I didn't appreciate it. This was at Anaheim, at the winter meetings, at the last hour.
"Theo believed that he had me and wasn't the nicest man communicating with Fernando. That is my perception, to what Fernando was saying."
Accompanied by Mets vice president Fred Wilpon, general manager Omar Minaya and agent Fernando Cuza, Martinez said Boston had "every opportunity" to sign him in the past two years, even below market value.
Martinez, 33, said he could retire after finishing his contract with the Mets.
"I don't plan to play until I'm 40 years, but I will have four years to study that decision," he said.
Martinez shook off questions about the condition of his arm in light of a 16-9 record and a 3.90 ERA in his final season with Boston.
"I felt good this year and I feel good now," he said. "I don't know where rumors about my health started," Martinez said. "I didn't have a bad year, but it wasn't the norm for me."
Martinez hopes to inject new life into the Mets, who finished next to last in the NL East in 2004 after finishing last the two previous seasons.
"My goal now is to stay healthy and get the Mets back to the World Series and win it," Martinez said.
1:30:00 AM
12.09.2004
THIS JUST IN: Bush is an idiot!
12:23:00 AM
Factoid of the day: Of every $100 the US has, it spends $0.14 of it on worldwide humanitarian aid. If you factor out direct emergency relief and the salaries of the consultants (rather than helping combat the root of the problems), it turns into $0.05. Which means that for all we say about wanting to help teach those countries to fish, we spend most of our money just handing them fish. It doesn't help!
12:22:00 AM
Hey there...knock knock knock...uh White House?? Ever hear of a little thing called SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE? Uh, it's in the Constitution! It's partially the reason for the formation of this country? Hello?? White House??
Yahoo! News - White House Plugs 10 Commandments Displays: "White House Plugs 10 Commandments Displays
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to allow Ten Commandments displays on government property, adding a federal view on a major church-state case that justices will deal with early next year.
The government has weighed in before in religion cases at the high court, including one earlier this year that challenged the words 'under God' in the classroom recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
The government supported a California school district in that case. Now, it is backing two Kentucky counties that had framed copies of the Ten Commandments in their courthouses.
The American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) sued McCreary and Pulaski counties, claiming the displays were an unconstitutional promotion of religion. The group won.
Justices will hear arguments, probably in February, in the counties' appeal and in a second case involving a Texas homeless man who wants a 6-foot granite monument removed from the state Capitol grounds.
The administration's top Supreme Court lawyer, Paul Clement, told justices in Wednesday's filing that Ten Commandments displays are common around the nation ? and in the court's own building, the Capitol and national monuments.
'Reproductions and representations of the Ten Commandments have been commonly employed across the country to symbolize both the rule of law itself, as well as the role of religion in the development of American law,' Clement wrote.
Clement said the displays are important in educating people 'about the nation's history and celebrating its heritage."
12:16:00 AM
12.07.2004
12:47:00 AM
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