Full Count by Jeff Blair

Author:Jeff Blair [Blair, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-81255-1
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2013-04-29T16:00:00+00:00

ROSTER MOVES

The Blue Jays’ 2002 payroll of $76,864,993 was in fact only a modest decrease from the payroll in Gord Ash’s final year as GM ($76,895,999), but more than a third of it, $30.4 million, was eaten up by Delgado and Raul Mondesi, the erratic outfielder Ash had acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the trade for Shawn Green. By the end of Ricciardi’s first season, Mondesi had been sold off to the New York Yankees for left-hander Scott Wiggins. The deal was put together by Godfrey and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, and announced by Ricciardi in the back of the press box at Boston’s Fenway Park while the Blue Jays were in the middle of losing 4–0 to the Yankees’ archrival Red Sox, en route to a 78–84 season. The Blue Jays agreed to pick up $6 million of the $13 million due to Mondesi in 2003, saving the remainder of his 2002 salary, which on a pro-rated basis came to about $5.5 million.

It was one of the most bizarre days of Ricciardi’s first season in charge of the team. First, it came in Boston—near his home—and was a trade designed to help out the hated Yankees, which is why Ricciardi joked about how “my house is probably getting egged right now.” Second, it had been preceded by reports in Baseball Weekly that the Red Sox wanted Ricciardi to be their GM, reports that would net Ricciardi a quick contract extension from the Blue Jays.

Ricciardi had signed a three-year contract when he agreed to become the Blue Jays’ GM after the 2001 season, but that deal was torn up and replaced on October 8, 2002, by a five-year contract. The announcement was made a week after Paul Godfrey denied the Red Sox’s request to talk to Ricciardi, ending a four-month narrative that seemed to point to Ricciardi leaving Toronto.

“Here’s what I know about the whole situation,” Ricciardi said. “The year before I took the job with the Blue Jays I got a call saying we’d like you to come to Boston. It wasn’t going to be for the general manager’s job, and I just told them, ‘Look, I have a contract [with the Oakland Athletics] right now. So we can wait until the contract is up. They talked to me again when the Blue Jays’ contract came up but by then I had already decided, why not go with Toronto? It’s not like these jobs come around every day.

“So Paul called me and was kind of feeling me out about what I’d like to do,” Ricciardi said (about the renewed interest from the Red Sox). “I said, ‘Paul, if you’re asking me if I want to go to work for a team that I grew up with? If you’re asking me whether I want to work for a team that’s 45 minutes from my house? You’re asking me if I want to go to a team that has way more resources than the Blue Jays and that is

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