Another classic World Series, at least in the press box
Posted on October 30th, 2008 – 3:36 PMBy Joe Christensen
Every year, I get melancholy the day after the baseball season ends. Today, I’m grateful. I had a great time covering the World Series.
It didn’t turn into a seven-game classic, but I got to see the home team clinch for the first time since 2002. It was a fun story to cover with the intrigue surrounding Game 5. The best part, though, was getting to see the scribes.
In Philadelphia, my press box seat was right between John Lowe (Detroit Free Press) and Richard Justice (Houston Chronicle), two distinguished gentlemen.
Between games, I got to hang with Dave Sheinin (Washington Post) and Dan Connolly (Baltimore Sun), two friends from my time on the Orioles beat. I got to see my college buddy Todd Zolecki (Philadelphia Inquirer) in his element. Zo and I were colleagues on the same sports staff with our own Michael Rand at the Minnesota Daily.
Our business is changing. The number of papers sending writers to these national events is shrinking.
So I never took it for granted, sitting there in the presence of writers who have won the Spink Award, which is presented each year at the Hall of Fame, including: Rick Hummel (St. Louis Post Dispatch), Tracy Ringolsby (Rocky Mountain News) and Peter Gammons (ESPN).
Among the esteemed columnists at the Series were Mark Whicker (Orange County Register), Ray Ratto (San Francisco Chronicle) and Joe Posnanski (Kansas City Star).
I could go on and on. Click on any of the above links to get a feel for the talent in that press box.
With around-the-clock highlights and the Internet, there are countless ways to follow the Series, of course. But there is still value in sending local writers.
There were former Twins everywhere, for example, and I hope you got a sense of that from our coverage. I found J.C. Romero holding his daughter on the field, 45 minutes after Game 5. He had just picked up his second win of the Series.
“You’re going to laugh,” he said. “But I told my wife I was going to win tonight. And it just happened that the good Lord answered my prayers, and he gave me that ‘W.’ I’ll take it with a humble heart.”
Then there was Charlie Manuel’s postgame press conference. He was Cleveland’s manager from 2000 to 2002, and things didn’t end very well. With the national media assembled, Manuel saw longtime Cleveland Plain Dealer beat writer Paul Hoynes and didn’t even wait for the question.
“Hoynsie, I’ll ask you something,” Manuel said. ”Why don’t you go back to Cleveland and tell them we won the World Series, all right? OK?”
Hoynes, who had a hard time controlling his laughter, said, “Do you think you proved anything to the people back in Cleveland?”
“I wasn’t working on trying to prove nothing,” Manuel said. “Don’t take this in a cocky way: I already knew how good I was.”
27 Responses to "Another classic World Series, at least in the press box"
Joe C-I knew Charlie Manuel from his playing days with the Twins,he is quite a character!He has alot of Dizzy Dean about him,you should do a feature about him for the Trib.
Now that the season is over, lets look forward to the offseason, which should play out to be an entertaining one for the Twinkies… Or at least we can hope for an entertaining one.
First things first, the Twins need to address the bullpen, that is above all. They need to find a good power righty that will be able to come and shut down ala Balfour (Tampa Bay) (to bad we didn’t keep him) we are set in the lefty reliever role.
Secondly, we absolutely need to find a right handed hitting 3B with power that is perferably under 30, the odds of that coming true are slim, so I will say a 3B that is over 30 but under 34 will have to do. We just need him to be able to put it over the fence. If we can’t find a 3B then we can look for a SS with some power.
I do believe this is attainable through a trade, some guys who are off limits for trades: Baker, Liriano, Slowey, Gomez, Span, the M and M’s (obviously), but honestly everyone else is fair game.
Thirdly, figure out the outfield, the outfield should be D. Young, Gomez, and Span. Cuddyer is a possible platoon with Kubel for DH, but he is making a lot of money to be a DH platoon, he most likely will be the starting RF if he is not traded. I do not think Cuddy should try out again at 3B, we all know how that ended.
Lastly, I will probably harassed for this comment, but we need to resign Punot… I know I know most of you who frequent this blog think Punto is no better then lint, but I do believe that he is one of the better utility players in the league, there are not that many guys out there that can be plugged in anywhere on the field and have an impact. Sure he is not that crazy hitter that most of you want, but that is not his game, he plays great D and can lay down a bunt when we need him to. He is a team player and wish more people would give him some slack.
Happy offseason to all!!!!
GO TWINS!!!!!!!!!!!
Punto will probably get a 2 yr/$7 million deal
do we really want to pay that for him?
[…] Around the Majors – […]
“They need to find a good power righty that will be able to come and shut down ala Balfour (Tampa Bay) (to bad we didn’t keep him)”
You are kidding, right? It’s a shame we didn’t waste the past 4 years on Grant Balfour and hope that he would, at the age of 30, have a career year that came out of nowhere? You do realize that Balfour was so bad last year and in spring training of this year that the Rays sent him to AAA to start the season, right? Yup, it’s a shame they didn’t hold on to him, because it was only a matter of time before he was going to figure it out.
Punto will probably get a 2 yr/$7 million deal
Ellis got a 2yr/$11 mil + an option year, while being older and having a worse season than Punto…
I think that the price will be closer to $5-6mil/year, which will make re-singing him plain crazy.
the tigers let renteria go, anyone think he has anything left? he’s not that old and maybe the tigers were just a bad fit? does he play the twins way?
nothing to give up but money, assuming carl still has any.
let renteria go, anyone think he has anything left?
I’d rather see the Twins re-sign Punto (and I really don’t really want to see them do that 
)
Renteria wouldn’t be a good fit since he seems to not play well on AL teams.
I will admit Punto had a decent year, but do we really want to spend a lot on someone who should be a utility guy? Let’s spend that on that glaring hole at 3B if we don’t trade for a guy like JJ Hardy and move him to 3rd.
SS-no to Orlando Cabrera. I could still even see JJ Hardy here and leave 3B as the weak infield spot. Who know-maybe Buscher is out there somewhere taking grounders everyday and working on this throws to 1st.
the Twins have $25-30M to spend this off-season. I think that would take care of all the weak spots.
3B should be a priority over short and I think that acquiring Hardy would take the same players as acquiring a good 3B. On the other hand, they can go for Hardy (is he even available?) and sign someone like Blake for a year or two.
I’d rather see them get a better 3B and trade for Khalil Greene (who burned his bridges with the Padres and will come pretty inexpensively…)
Ellis got a 2yr/$11 mil + an option year, while being older and having a worse season than Punto…
He’s all of 6 months older, and do you really want to put Punto’s history at the plate up against that of Ellis?
snepp,
not me. I am sure there might be teams out there that will give him Ellis-type money. I just hope it is not the Twins.
Wow, that was quite a Daily sports staff! Puts the current one to shame… Nah, just kidding, they’re good guys.
But seriously, to have three go on to work in sports at major newspapers is pretty good.
Greene gets us power with a lower than Punto OBP. Padres filed a grievance against him on Oct. 7, for breaking his hand after striking out. Maybe a low A prospect to get him??? $6.5 million next year. He would have to have a monster year for him to be a Type A or even B free agent at the end of the year.
Utility job goes to Tolbert. Harris can grab innings, too. Definately not sold on Buscher, I just expect one bad throw per game to cost us runs.
I saw every Tigers game on TV in 08. Forget about Renteria at SS. Stiff with a capitol S! Doesn’t play the Twins way either, even if he had anything left.
Ladies and gentlemen…preprare for the worst:
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/8741126/Baseball-needs-to-work-on-its-calendar?MSNHPHMA
The push begins for a neutral site World Series.
I fully expect Selig to cave and have this ready by 2010.
T,
this is all FOX and broadcasters. Selig is on record to say that a neutral site will not happen “because it would be unfair to the fans”.
I still don’t get the big deal with one single game being postponed. It’s baseball. Live with it.
Could Cuddyer become an adequate 1B to spell Morneau when necessary?
Cuddyer can do that, so can Ruiz for less than a tenth of the price
Joe, it’s been fun reading you all season. Looking forward to next year already. Less than 100 days until pitchers and catchers!
I understand the melancholy. I really miss baseball already. I’m thinking of winter vacation in the Dominican just to catch a couple of games.
Since when has Nicky Punto been a utility player for the Twins? He’s been a starter the last 3 years. I WISH he was a utility player, but Gardy won’t make that possible. If the Twins re-sign Punto, Gardy will have him starting. And if Punto is starting, the Twins can again have a winning season, but it won’t be a championship season. It’s time to go after a championship. Done and done.
Nick Punto is not worth $5or6 million for two or more years. And you all know if he is signed then Gardenhire will play him like a regular everyday player and Nick just is not an everyday player. Now it was mentioned in a previous post certain players that should not be traded. Well there is one missing player and he is K.Slowey. If the Twins need to trade starters then let them trade Perkins and N. Blackburn…
Didn’t the Cardinals clinch it at home in 2006? Maybe you weren’t at that game.
AJ: Punto is at his best in a utility role, but in the 2006 he was good enough to deserve a spot in the starting lineup.
In 2007, Gardy wasn’t given a better option at 3rd until Buscher was called up in late July/early August.
In 2008, Punto managed to again be the best option at SS…and put up numbers comparable to the Mighty Jason Bartlett That Everybody Misses.
In 2007, Gardy wasn’t given a better option at 3rd
Are you sure that Gardy asked for a better option at 3rd? My recollection was that he named LNP the starter and he was mighty happy about it. Buscher came after Punto had been flirting with the Mendoza line for 3 months.
Anyways, my point is….the Twins need to upgrade at 3B and SS so we are not dependent on a utility guy starting for us anymore.
