May 22, 2006

The Week in Quotes

May 15-21

by John Erhardt

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"You're not going to find anything out about me. They can test me every day if they want. I don't care."
--Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols, on how his performance is natural (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

"At the same time, yeah, you feel happy to do (this). I know a lot of people have approached me--friends, (and) I heard about it--that people thought that I was on steroids and some stuff like that. Now that they do the testing and I put up these numbers, it's good. It's good to prove that because I work hard for it. I don't need any type of things like that to help me out with my game. I just take the blessing that the good Lord has given me to perform, to glorify his name and to help out my team to win."
--Pujols

"Do you know how many times I've heard (it)--and I'm sick and tired of people saying that I'm not 26 and whatever. I mean, who cares? I don't care what they say. I know how old I am. I know that I don't use all of those bad things that people are talking about that I use. ... They went after my rookie year and tried to find out my age, and they didn't find anything."
--Pujols

"Like I said. I don't have to hide anything because I haven't done anything wrong."
--Pujols

"I want to be the best player that ever plays baseball. Is that going to happen? I don't know. ... I don't read the future. God only reads the future. I want to be in the Hall of Fame. I want to do that. I also want to win 10 championship rings if I can do that."
--Pujols

"People talk. That's their job, to write something stupid without finding out. Like Barry, people are talking about him and they haven't found anything out about the guy. They're talking about making the guy a bad guy. Prove the point first and then you can write anything about it. But before, leave the guy alone."
--Pujols (ESPN.com)

IN SAYING WHAT IS OBVIOUS, NEVER USE CUNNING: YELLING WORKS BETTER

"When you go argue with the umpires and the first thing they say is you can't argue this or that, then what is my job, to make the lineup and watch the game?"
--White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, on what a manager is allowed to argue about (Chicago Sun-Times)

"What I'd like to know, who ever runs this [bleepin'] game, send me a note and say what any manager can go out and argue with the umpire. Because I don't say it was wrong or right, but I'd like to know what you can argue. Because if you can't argue about anything, why do we have a job for you? It's good to protect the umpires, but you got to have some limits."
--Guillen

"I don't care. My comment is, what can we do in this game without getting a fine? They're so restrictive when you try to do what you need to do. Baseball won't let you do it."
--Guillen, on whether he'll get fined for arguing with umpires last week

"I know the umpires around the league have to control the game, but it's getting to the point where you can't argue about anything. [Managers] are losing power, and you lose the respect of the players. If you lose the respect of the players then you have a real good chance of losing the respect of the team. Every time a manager gets kicked out of a game, he lets the players down. In the meantime, you've got to be able to protect the players and let them know that you are behind them 100 percent."
--Guillen

"It's pretty much like you're sitting there just playing Nintendo. I didn't say anything against the umpires, but there's so many rules it's tough to deal with."
--Guillen

"When you do something wrong as a person, you know you did something wrong, you don't feel right. I simply established eye contact with him because he was looking in the dugout, and said, 'That's a swing, Ron.' I didn't say, 'Hey, [expletive], that's a swing.' I slept well [Saturday] night."
--White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper, who was also ejected

"You cannot argue a checked swing. I told [Guillen] twice, just like balls and strikes, balks, you cannot argue those by rule. He can come out, because I don't know what he's going to ask yet. But once he brought up the checked swing, I said, 'All right, Ozzie. You cannot argue a checked swing.' If you allow [Guillen to argue], it's against the rule."
--umpire crew chief Dale Scott, on why both were ejected

"During my discussion with Ozzie, he popped off on the bench to Kulpa."
--Scott, on why Cooper got ejected

"My only comment was, after Ozzie got thrown out, [Kulpa] was looking in our dugout and I said, 'That's a swing, Ron.' That was it, you're gone. I've never been thrown out of a game on any level ... I take that back. I got thrown out of a game in Double A, and I was right then, too."
--Cooper

MAKING GOOD IN MANAGEMENT

"Honestly, if they fire Dusty, I don't think he'll really even care. I know he cares because he wants to win, but he'll find another job. Dusty is good enough to do that."
--Guillen, on fellow Chicago manager Dusty Baker (Chicago Sun-Times)

"A lot of people blame a person and they don't have anything to do with it. The manager does the lineup and tries to get the most out of the players. People don't know what's going on in the front office, or the clubhouse. The players aren't performing right, so the manager is the only one going to get fired. That is what is happening to Dusty. It's going to happen to me one day. It's easy to fire one guy instead of 25, and the GM won't fire himself."
--Guillen

"It is not a preoccupation of mine. I was asked by (former Expos owner) Jeffrey Loria how much longer I wanted to do this. I said one more year. That was five years ago."
--Giants manager Felipe Alou, on his future (San Francisco Chronicle)

"So now I'm hearing if they sweep us, I'm fired. It's all [b.s.]. I ain't got time for [b.s.]. I'm too old for [b.s.]."
--Cubs manager Dusty Baker, on the interleague series with the White Sox (Chicago Sun-Times)

GOING ALL THE WAY

"You either have to be one of those guys that just has electric stuff or one of those guys that gets lucky, or a combination of both."
--Mets pitcher Tom Glavine, on no-hitters (USA Today)

"Instead of going up to the plate looking to hit, they are going up to hit their pitch. In general, they fight off more pitches. And the game situation has to be ideal. You have to have a low pitch count. Nobody's going to let you throw 150 pitches trying to get a no-hitter."
--Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina

"It's very rare just to have a complete game nowadays. I don't think anybody cares. It's not an issue."
--Tigers manager Jim Leyland

"He ... said he was tired. I said, 'Are you out of your mind? Look up at the scoreboard? Do you see what's going on?' And he said, 'I guess I'm not tired anymore.' I said, 'Oh really?'"
--Current Orioles pitching coach Leo Mazzone, recalling a Kent Mercker no-hitter in 1994

"It was broken up on a good pitch. That illustrates the fact it's so hard to do. I threw Kevin Mench a first-pitch fastball, up and in, and he turned on it and hit a homer. I made my pitch. It shows you can't pitch to throw a no-hitter. You've just got to hit your spots and hopefully miss the solid part of the bat."
--A's pitcher Barry Zito, on having a no-hitter broken up

"Sometimes, pitchers throw better games when they don't get no-hitters. Maddux once had an 89-pitch, no-walk, (eight-strikeout) game against the Yankees. That might be better than a no-hitter."
--Mazzone

ARRRRRRRR, THEY'RE DRIVING ME NUTS

"The Pirates? That is a weak lineup. What else do you want me to say? They're not the Yankees."
--Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo, before his start against the Pirates (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

"I felt like I was embarrassed to get behind 4-1 early in a game like that. It's not a secret. They don't have a bunch of All-Stars in that lineup. They had seven righties up there, which is tailor-made for me. I was embarrassed to be beaten by those guys."
--Arroyo

"That's not to say you can't be beat on any given day, but I thought it was a horse (crap) outing, especially against a team like that. I mean, they are one of the weakest teams in baseball. That's just the way it is. If I gave up four runs in six innings to the Yankees, I probably wouldn't be embarrassed, but I was."
--Arroyo

"If I can't stand on the mound and feel comfortable against that lineup, then something's wrong with me."
--Arroyo

"What he said was very disrespectful. When you're out on the field, you respect everything. You respect the game, you respect your players and you respect the other team's players. To come out and say that, especially against your former teammates, guys who've played with you, it's more disrespectful."
--Pirates shortstop Jack Wilson, on Arroyo's comments

"You take it personally. You can be frustrated with an outing and think you've faced better lineups, but don't come out publicly and rip your old teammates. The fact is, we hit the ball well and the score could have been worse."
--Wilson

"I'm not disrespecting anybody. I'm just stating the facts. We don't have a lights-out rotation here. We don't have a lights-out bullpen. That's just a fact. We don't have a busload of guys that are Randy Johnsons. We don't have anybody in our rotation that's a Randy Johnson. That's just the way it is."
--Arroyo

"If the Yankees were playing us and they said they were embarrassed to be beat by Dave Williams, Bronson Arroyo and Brandon Claussen, hey, I'm not going to take offense to it. I know these are three guys the Yankees shouldn't be beaten by. I don't think I should be beaten by a lineup that sends seven righties at me and doesn't have a lot of juice in its lineup or whatever you want to call it."
--Arroyo

THE REST

"It hurt a lot worse when I did it."
--Philles center fielder Aaron Rowand, while watching the tape of him crashing into the wall and breaking his nose (MLB.com)

"He can go to Wimbledon. I think of all the things I've never done, the things I've never been able to do ..."
--Yankees manager Joe Torre, on what Hideki Matsui will do with his time off while recovering from a wrist injury (New York Newsday)

"He always used to tell me things and I was like, 'You're a minor . . . we'd get in trouble."
--30 year old Rosy Perdomo, who is married to 19 year old Danny Almonte, made famous by playing in the Little League World Series when he was too old (New York Newsday)

"I really waited for the right person to come along, so I wasn't going to just fool around, especially not with someone younger than me."
--Perdomo

"I was hoping it was going to go out. Actually, I knew it was out. I was really glad, too. I didn't want to play anymore."
--Yankees catcher Jorge Posada, on a game-ending home run against the Rangers (New York Daily News)

"What affected me was not pitching well."
--Yankees pitcher Shawn Chacon, on why he struggled against the Rangers

"I know your paper paid for you to come down here but tough (expletive). I'll let you talk to Wells."
--Red Sox manager Terry Francona, to New York reporters, before his game against the Phillies (Boston Herald)

"He's stupid. He's one of those rich kids, he doesn't think about (expletive)."
--Red Sox DH David Ortiz, on White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski. Ortiz actually liked having Pierzynski as a teammate, so these aren't fightin' words.

"He'll still be in costume. Maybe he'll have to get dressed up one less time."
--A.J.Pierzynski, on rewarding rookie teammate Brian Anderson, who had his back during a fight with the Cubs. Anderson had to dress like an Arizona State cheerleader on a road trip (MLB.com)

John Erhardt is an author of Baseball Prospectus. 
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