Hey Sheff! There’s No Crying In Baseball

Sheffield’s latest whine puts him at odds with GM Cashman




By: Russ Rose
Special to Yankees Talk Shop
March 11, 2004

As many of us surmised from the beginning the whining has begun. The speculation is now reality. Gary Sheffield isn’t a happy camper and he’s making sure everybody knows about it. The Sheffield era in New York has begun and already he is at odds with the press and more specifically his general manager.

First it was the steroid issue. Sheffield and his attorney said that all Gary’s dealings with BALCO, the company allegedly distributing THG and other steroid supplements to athletes, was only having vitamins shipped to him. In fact his attorney said that Sheffield “never knowingly” ingested any form of a human growth or performance enhancing substance. Huh? Unless you’re unconscious and unable to resist someone making you ingest something you don’t want in your system how do you not know what’s going over the teeth and over the gums and look out tummy here it comes? It sounded like a bunch of legalese to me. What’s the matter? Does BALCO have better vitamins than a GNC store?

Sheffield opens up his big mouth and says for the entire world to hear he’d be the first in line to take a drug test. However, when he’s offered the opportunity by a sports writer to do just that he goes into an expletive laced rant and refuses to do what he said he’d do. He hides behind the MLBPA and says the union doesn’t want him giving a voluntary test. He says he will acquiesce to the union’s wishes. That’s hogwash Gary. You want to prove you didn’t use steroids, then step up and take the test. The union can’t stop you. So, once again, another athlete opens up his pie hole, makes a proclamation and, then, backs away from his statements.

Now comes the latest incident in Sheffield’s life. The right fielder apparently injured his thumb sometime back in the 2003 season while playing for the Atlanta Braves. During spring training he re-injured the ligament in his right thumb. At first it appears that Sheffield will only miss a couple of days, pending an MRI on the thumb. The exam reveals the ligament in Sheffield’s thumb is definitely injured and the team, through GM Brian Cashman, speculates Gary might miss two to three months of action due to the nature of the injury.

Sheffield was surprised and angered to find his condition printed in the New York papers. He goes back to the doctors and he tells them it hurts when he does certain things. They tell him don’t do those certain things and surgery, for now, is avoided. So what started out as a possible long stay on the disabled list is now a couple of days of rest and then back to business as usual.

No big deal right? Wrong! Sheffield handled the incident like he has his whole entire career. He overreacted. He tells the press he’s “pissed off” with Cashman and the Yankees telling the press about his injury before speaking to him and before all the results of the tests were in. Gary’s take is “talk to me first.” Okay, fair enough. However, shouldn’t you practice what you preach? Instead of going directly to Brian Cashman and voicing his displeasure he goes right to all the microphones and tape recorders and let’s everyone know about his displeasure with how the injury situation was handled. His blast was heard 12 miles away in Clearwater where Cashman was attending a post-arbitration meeting with other GM’s. Cashman, like a trained fireman, left the meeting, headed back to Legends Field and worked on putting out the fire before it turned into a four-alarm blaze.

Cashman and Sheffield sat down and talked things over. Both emerged from the meeting feeling better about the other. Cashman admits he may have been a little hasty in his assessment of Sheffield’s injury, but he also made Sheffield aware he’s playing in the fishbowl of New York City. He’s no longer playing in the ATL, which has only one major newspaper. He’s now playing in the Big Apple, where the press puts its sports teams under a relentless and unending microscope. It’s a colonoscopy of words Gary. The New York media will climb up your you-know-what looking for a story. So you better become accustomed to the new climate called Yankeeland. If you don’t your stay in New York won’t be a pleasant one. If he were still alive you could ask Roger Maris about the press. Better still ask Jeff Weaver. One lost his hair and the other lost his confidence. A thin skin in New York City is a recipe for disaster. Welcome to New York Gary. Now get used to it.


PLAY BALL!



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