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CURT'S CORNER |
Boston Dirt Dogs Exclusive |
Ace Chimes in on
the Nomar Madness
"Theo had to decide if 30-40 games of Nomar at SS, with another 20-30 games of Pokey/Ricky at SS was better than 50-60 games of Orlando Cabrera at SS. Look, Orlando Cabrera is not a .250 hitter, he's a legitimate gold glove winner and in my opinion his career numbers are a lot closer to the real player than the numbers he had put up this year."
Boston Dirt
Dogs: Curt, an email came in from
a lifelong Sox fan after yesterday's trade that
started like this:
"I picked up my
daughter at a birthday party yesterday
around 5 pm and told one of the parents
there that Nomar was traded to the Cubs. A
little boy with a Red Sox hat overheard me
and started crying and had to be taken
away..."
What do you say to
all the little Nomah-5 shirt wearing fans out
there, and the people who thought Nomar was the
next Ted Williams, and would spend his entire career
here?
Curt Schilling: You tell
them the truth I think. Listen, no one died
here, I am certain though, being a new guy in
these parts, that some people feel like someone
did actually die. This is a sport, big business,
not life and death. Trades happen, and this one
was obviously larger and had much more impact
given the team and the fans and the player and
all the combined history.
It was no mystery
that Nomar wasn't going to re-sign here, I
continue to be amazed at the amount of dancing
around this actual fact by everyone. Given that
he wasn't going to be coming back, the GM of
this team had a very significant decision to
make on whether 30-40 games with him, and then
the eventual compensation draft choice, were
worth not trading him.
Theo had to decide
if 30-40 games of Nomar at SS, with another
20-30 games of Pokey/Ricky at SS was better than
50-60 games of Orlando Cabrera at SS. Look,
Orlando Cabrera is not a .250 hitter, he's a
legitimate gold glove winner and in my opinion his career
numbers are a lot closer to the real player than
the numbers he had put up this year. From what I
have read, he was also one of the potential
replacements to be pursued this winter when
Nomar left.
Regardless of all
the "he said she said" going back and forth now,
the facts have been pretty plain and very
obvious since I got here. Nomar was not
re-signing here, he was going to be a free agent,
rather than let him walk for the pick our GM
decided to try and improve the one area this
team has a gaping weakness in, and did. As far
as losing his offense I look at it this way. We
spent the first 1/3 of the season without him,
and we played well, we were also missing Trot,
like now, they are both not in our lineup, we
found a way to win then, and we can do so now,
we have to.
Would our offense be
better with BOTH of them in it? Sure would, but
you can't have everything you want, you have to
take what's given to you and make it work, and I
think we will.
So I guess the short
answer is to tell them to appreciate what
they got a chance to see, and remember it. Tell
them that Nomar is a ballplayer, not a fireman
or a police officer or a doctor, those people
are the ones she needs to look up to and
respect, along with her parents. Ballplayers are
there to perform and be cheered, booed and
jeered, to entertain fans with their god given
ability, and to perform at a level no one else
can. Then, at the end of the day, we go home and
do the same things you all do.
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Boston Dirt
Dogs: While "cancer in the
clubhouse" is obviously going a bit too far, there have been many reports, for a long time,
that Nomar was a loner, marching to the beat of
his own drummer for quite some time, e.g. not
cutting hair for the Cowboy Up movement last
year. Any truth to the fact that Nomar was not
on the same page as his Red Sox teammates? And
does this matter when it comes to the only stat
that counts, wins and losses?
Curt
Schilling:
Nomar was quiet, from
what I have heard he has always been quiet. That
doesn't imply one negative thing, but it's
merely his way. I'm not going to delve into the
'cancer' thing because it's a childish argument
and not one to debate in a forum like this
anyway. Nomar never affected the way I went
about preparing for my job nor how I did it.
When he played, he played his
ass off. I got a small sample size only being
able to see him for less than 40 games, but in my opinion
it was obvious that he was having issues moving
around well when he was in the field.
As to whether stats are the
only things that count, no, they aren't.
Even more so in this city
than anywhere else I have been. There is so much
more scrutiny here that it's imperative to have
the whole team in the same frame of mind, being
able to rely on each other, and trust each
other. While I am sure it can be done without a
close knit group of guys, I haven't been on a
team that won that wasn't close, that didn't
argue, bitch and holler once in a while. But here
it's made out to be a much larger deal to you
all, through the media, than it ever is inside
the clubhouse. That, to me anyway, is more a
byproduct of the media competition than
anything else.
Boston Dirt Dogs:
Did Nomar's being peeved at Sox brass about the
off-season A-Rod pursuit, and the fact that he
could not reach agreement on a new contract,
have a trickle down effect on other teammates?
Do you think it affected his focus on the field,
i.e. sloppy defense since return?
Curt
Schilling:
Not in my opinion. Not at
all. Nomar gave everything he had when he laced
up his spikes.
Boston Dirt
Dogs:
Do you know if Nomar's
Achilles' injury was misdiagnosed from the
get-go? Do you think he would have returned
sooner if not for the lingering bitterness at
Sox brass re: contract/A-Rod?
Curt Schilling:
No idea. I
still don't really know what it is that he has.
I don't know, because I don't know what all went
on. I don't know what was and was not true in
all of that mess. For someone to say "yes" to this
you would, in a sense, be saying that Nomar
screwed his teammates to get back at the
ownership of this team, which I cannot see
happening.
Boston Dirt
Dogs:
Having worked out with Nomar
in Arizona, what can you say about his
conditioning program? Does he work out too hard
in the off-season?
Curt
Schilling:
Nomar puts his time and
effort into preparing the right way for a 162
game schedule in my opinion. The people at API are pro's,
and, in my opinion, the best in the country at what they do.
Boston Dirt
Dogs:
You've mentioned that you've
never been on a championship team that could not
play solid defense. This team, as was constituted,
was giving up far too many easy runs. How does this
trade affect the overall team defense? And the
chemistry on the club (if there is such a
thing)?
Curt Schilling:
I think we've gone from a suspect defense, to a
top-tier team defensively. That will have an
impact, and a positive one. In one sense, you no
longer have to score as many runs as you did
since you are going to be giving up fewer. It's
not only errors that lose games, it's plays that
aren't made that are not errors, plays that few
people notice and never show up in the box
scores. We talk about them, we see them, and
they matter. Right now the two best defensive SS
in the AL reside in Boston, that's not a bad
thing. I told someone at season's start that the
team that pitched and defended best between us
and the Yankees would win the East, I still
believe that. Their offense is a juggernaut, but
they catch the ball better than everyone thought
they would and we haven't.
Pitching and defense wins in
October. I can't remember the last team that
slugged their way to a World Series championship. The
chemistry will change, I don't doubt that. How
it will change I don't know, but chemistry, good
chemistry, is a result of winning, period.
