grim
8-11-05, 2:49 PM
Was reading this in last Saturday's newspaper... what a nut case. Yes? Yes.
Gary Sheffield: Jeter No Yankee Leader
Aug 5, 2005 12:37 pm US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) Gary Sheffield knows who leads the New York Yankees, and it apparently isn't Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez.
Sheffield all but appointed himself the Yankees' most valuable player in an interview with New York magazine, accusing reporters of distorting the truth and ruining team chemistry.
``I know who the leader is on the team,'' Sheffield told the magazine. ``I ain't going to say who it is, but I know who it is. I know who the team feeds off. I know who the opposing team comes in knowing they have to defend to stop the Yankees.
``I know this. The people don't know. Why? The media don't want them to know. They want to promote two players in a positive light, and everyone else is garbage.''
Sheffield was batting .302 this season entering Friday night's game against Toronto, a percentage point behind Jeter and well behind Rodriguez's team-leading .316.
Rodriguez also leads in home runs (30) and RBIs (85). Sheffield's 21 homers and 81 RBIs are tied for second in both categories.
Sheffield said the heavy scrutiny that goes with playing in New York inhibits friendships in the locker room.
``This is the first team I've been on where no one sits at their locker,'' he said. ``It's where you build your chemistry, just talking about life. I'm used to having six chairs around me, but here if there are six chairs, then there's going to be 20 reporters.''
Even if the clubhouse were less hectic, Sheffield said he wouldn't grow too close to any teammates.
``I don't trust that many people,'' he told New York. ``Just my mother and my wife and a couple of friends. When I trust people, it doesn't end well.''
Sheffield was never known for his congeniality during tumultuous stops in Milwaukee and Los Angeles. He blamed the media for his reputation.
``It happens because you're white and I'm black,'' Sheffield said. ``My interpretation of things is different. You don't see it the way I see it. You write how you understand it, how you would articulate it, not how I, as a black man, would articulate it.''
http://1010wins.com/topstories/local_story_217123900.html
Was reading this today...
When Sheff stirs pot, anger bubbles over
WALLACE MATTHEWS
August 10, 2005
Sheff's salad is tossed. And drowning in vinegar and bitter herbs, with a radish or two thrown in. So what else is new?
Once again, Gary Sheffield is hot and bothered about a lot of things, but try to figure out what specifically is bugging him? You've got a better chance of slipping a fastball past his eternally waving bat.
Part of Sheffield's inner turmoil no doubt comes from his background, growing up in a section of Tampa so rugged he often went to school carrying brass knuckles in his lunchbox, if he ever had a lunchbox.
And part of it comes from some shadowy corner of Sheffield's mind, as forbidding a neighborhood as the one he grew up in, from which commands are apparently issued on a regular basis for him to feel dissatisfied or disrespected or angry. Or better yet, all three.
Although his neighborhood has gotten better, his paycheck has gotten bigger and his numbers are approaching Cooperstown quality, it seems as if something is always biting at him. When this Sheff is cooking, the cauldron is always aboil.
And yet Joe Torre can say, without embarrassment or sarcasm, that Gary Sheffield is "a low-maintenance player."
"Anybody who plays every day is low maintenance," Torre said before last night's 2-1 White Sox victory at Yankee Stadium, when the best catch was made by the screen behind home plate when a fan plunged out of the upper deck. "He plays every day, he's dedicated to what he does, he's very proud of what he does, he's fearless."
What more could a smart manager ask for? Torre is not asking what motivated Sheffield's latest self-inflicted crisis, an interview with a magazine writer in which he (apparently) took shots at Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Brian Cashman, the rest of the Yankee organization, the New York media and anyone else you care to throw into the mix.
Asking questions like that is another guy's job, namely yours truly. Torre doesn't even bother asking Sheffield if everything's OK, because he already knows the answer.
"I don't see anything different about Sheff from the first day I met him," Torre said. That means everything is not OK, but Sheffield is still playing well.
The Sheffield Torre sees is the guy batting .304 with 23 homers and 86 RBIs. The guy who routinely visits the trainer's room to have his troublesome shoulder stretched and loosened. The one who swings his bat as if it were an axe and the baseball a tree.
He's not really interested in the other Sheffield, the one who never seems happy despite playing a game he professes to love in a city he claims to have always wanted to play in and earning the kind of paycheck that would pop the eyes of a rich kid from Muttontown, never mind a poor kid from Tampa.
Consequently, Torre said he will not clutter his mind with the details of the story in this week's New York Magazine.
"I don't plan on reading it, and you know why?" Torre said. "So when you ask me about certain aspects of it, I don't have to give an answer. I'm not asking him about it, either. That way it's easier for me ... It's just that if I felt the team was different or there was some problem because of it, then it's something I have to address. But I don't sense any of that."
Once again, Sheffield vents and his words disappear into the atmosphere like water vapor on a summer day. In 2000, he told Armen Keteyian on HBO's "Real Sports" that he believed "six or seven" players on each major-league team were using steroids. No one in baseball or the media followed up on it.
Last December, Sheffield reportedly told the grand jury in the BALCO investigation he had inadvertently used "the cream," "the clear" and "red beans," all code names for steroids, that had been given him by Barry Bonds. Nowhere in baseball did anyone chant "Ste-roids! Ste-roids!" at Sheffield the way they did at Jason Giambi. Even when he testifies under oath, nobody puts much credence into what Gary Sheffield has to say.
In the magazine story and on a local radio show yesterday, Sheffield implied that he is the real leader of the Yankees, that they want only "to promote two players in a positive light, and everyone else is garbage," that Cashman tried to lowball him by offering a mere $16 million for two years, and that he has been extraordinarily selfless by agreeing to defer $4.4 million of his three-year, $39-million deal at the Yankees' request.
Oh, yes, and that the Yankees are not "family-oriented" enough, that too many teammates avoid the clubhouse rather than create chemistry, and that the local media "can't stand it because I'm honest."
Last week, Sheffield tried to claim he had been misquoted. Yesterday, having read the story in publication, he insisted, "It came out exactly the way I wanted it to come out. If that's what I said, that's what I said."
And the entire Yankee Nation yawns and rolls over. Sheff's cauldron is bubbling again. Business as usual.
http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/ny-spwally104378010aug10,0,481866.story?coll=ny-yankees-print
Gary Sheffield: Jeter No Yankee Leader
Aug 5, 2005 12:37 pm US/Eastern
(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) Gary Sheffield knows who leads the New York Yankees, and it apparently isn't Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez.
Sheffield all but appointed himself the Yankees' most valuable player in an interview with New York magazine, accusing reporters of distorting the truth and ruining team chemistry.
``I know who the leader is on the team,'' Sheffield told the magazine. ``I ain't going to say who it is, but I know who it is. I know who the team feeds off. I know who the opposing team comes in knowing they have to defend to stop the Yankees.
``I know this. The people don't know. Why? The media don't want them to know. They want to promote two players in a positive light, and everyone else is garbage.''
Sheffield was batting .302 this season entering Friday night's game against Toronto, a percentage point behind Jeter and well behind Rodriguez's team-leading .316.
Rodriguez also leads in home runs (30) and RBIs (85). Sheffield's 21 homers and 81 RBIs are tied for second in both categories.
Sheffield said the heavy scrutiny that goes with playing in New York inhibits friendships in the locker room.
``This is the first team I've been on where no one sits at their locker,'' he said. ``It's where you build your chemistry, just talking about life. I'm used to having six chairs around me, but here if there are six chairs, then there's going to be 20 reporters.''
Even if the clubhouse were less hectic, Sheffield said he wouldn't grow too close to any teammates.
``I don't trust that many people,'' he told New York. ``Just my mother and my wife and a couple of friends. When I trust people, it doesn't end well.''
Sheffield was never known for his congeniality during tumultuous stops in Milwaukee and Los Angeles. He blamed the media for his reputation.
``It happens because you're white and I'm black,'' Sheffield said. ``My interpretation of things is different. You don't see it the way I see it. You write how you understand it, how you would articulate it, not how I, as a black man, would articulate it.''
http://1010wins.com/topstories/local_story_217123900.html
Was reading this today...
When Sheff stirs pot, anger bubbles over
WALLACE MATTHEWS
August 10, 2005
Sheff's salad is tossed. And drowning in vinegar and bitter herbs, with a radish or two thrown in. So what else is new?
Once again, Gary Sheffield is hot and bothered about a lot of things, but try to figure out what specifically is bugging him? You've got a better chance of slipping a fastball past his eternally waving bat.
Part of Sheffield's inner turmoil no doubt comes from his background, growing up in a section of Tampa so rugged he often went to school carrying brass knuckles in his lunchbox, if he ever had a lunchbox.
And part of it comes from some shadowy corner of Sheffield's mind, as forbidding a neighborhood as the one he grew up in, from which commands are apparently issued on a regular basis for him to feel dissatisfied or disrespected or angry. Or better yet, all three.
Although his neighborhood has gotten better, his paycheck has gotten bigger and his numbers are approaching Cooperstown quality, it seems as if something is always biting at him. When this Sheff is cooking, the cauldron is always aboil.
And yet Joe Torre can say, without embarrassment or sarcasm, that Gary Sheffield is "a low-maintenance player."
"Anybody who plays every day is low maintenance," Torre said before last night's 2-1 White Sox victory at Yankee Stadium, when the best catch was made by the screen behind home plate when a fan plunged out of the upper deck. "He plays every day, he's dedicated to what he does, he's very proud of what he does, he's fearless."
What more could a smart manager ask for? Torre is not asking what motivated Sheffield's latest self-inflicted crisis, an interview with a magazine writer in which he (apparently) took shots at Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Brian Cashman, the rest of the Yankee organization, the New York media and anyone else you care to throw into the mix.
Asking questions like that is another guy's job, namely yours truly. Torre doesn't even bother asking Sheffield if everything's OK, because he already knows the answer.
"I don't see anything different about Sheff from the first day I met him," Torre said. That means everything is not OK, but Sheffield is still playing well.
The Sheffield Torre sees is the guy batting .304 with 23 homers and 86 RBIs. The guy who routinely visits the trainer's room to have his troublesome shoulder stretched and loosened. The one who swings his bat as if it were an axe and the baseball a tree.
He's not really interested in the other Sheffield, the one who never seems happy despite playing a game he professes to love in a city he claims to have always wanted to play in and earning the kind of paycheck that would pop the eyes of a rich kid from Muttontown, never mind a poor kid from Tampa.
Consequently, Torre said he will not clutter his mind with the details of the story in this week's New York Magazine.
"I don't plan on reading it, and you know why?" Torre said. "So when you ask me about certain aspects of it, I don't have to give an answer. I'm not asking him about it, either. That way it's easier for me ... It's just that if I felt the team was different or there was some problem because of it, then it's something I have to address. But I don't sense any of that."
Once again, Sheffield vents and his words disappear into the atmosphere like water vapor on a summer day. In 2000, he told Armen Keteyian on HBO's "Real Sports" that he believed "six or seven" players on each major-league team were using steroids. No one in baseball or the media followed up on it.
Last December, Sheffield reportedly told the grand jury in the BALCO investigation he had inadvertently used "the cream," "the clear" and "red beans," all code names for steroids, that had been given him by Barry Bonds. Nowhere in baseball did anyone chant "Ste-roids! Ste-roids!" at Sheffield the way they did at Jason Giambi. Even when he testifies under oath, nobody puts much credence into what Gary Sheffield has to say.
In the magazine story and on a local radio show yesterday, Sheffield implied that he is the real leader of the Yankees, that they want only "to promote two players in a positive light, and everyone else is garbage," that Cashman tried to lowball him by offering a mere $16 million for two years, and that he has been extraordinarily selfless by agreeing to defer $4.4 million of his three-year, $39-million deal at the Yankees' request.
Oh, yes, and that the Yankees are not "family-oriented" enough, that too many teammates avoid the clubhouse rather than create chemistry, and that the local media "can't stand it because I'm honest."
Last week, Sheffield tried to claim he had been misquoted. Yesterday, having read the story in publication, he insisted, "It came out exactly the way I wanted it to come out. If that's what I said, that's what I said."
And the entire Yankee Nation yawns and rolls over. Sheff's cauldron is bubbling again. Business as usual.
http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/yankees/ny-spwally104378010aug10,0,481866.story?coll=ny-yankees-print