Posted October 3, 200519 yr According to a column in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel today by Dave Hyde.....there was some last minute line-up shuffling in the final game. Encarnacion showed up at the stadium just one hour before game time....and told McKeon he had a bad wrist...couldn't play. Also, Delgado did not play. It's insinuated in the column that the reason was that he opted out to protect his .300 average. If true, I guess this was more important to him than helping the team and Dontrelle win the game. I can't help but remember the story of Ted Williams opting to play in the last game of his .400 season, at the risk of falling below .400. Just something to keep in mind in this off-season that looks to be full of roster changes. I like Delgado, who doesn't. He adds a great deal to the team offensively....though he does detract a lot on defense.
October 3, 200519 yr i think theres looking too much into it. jack had been letting the kids play anyway, delagdo got his pinch hit and all is well.
October 3, 200519 yr According to a column in the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel today by Dave Hyde.....there was some last minute line-up shuffling in the final game. Encarnacion showed up at the stadium just one hour before game time....and told McKeon he had a bad wrist...couldn't play. Also, Delgado did not play. It's insinuated in the column that the reason was that he opted out to protect his .300 average. If true, I guess this was more important to him than helping the team and Dontrelle win the game. I can't help but remember the story of Ted Williams opting to play in the last game of his .400 season, at the risk of falling below .400. Just something to keep in mind in this off-season that looks to full of roster changes. I like Delgado, who doesn't. He adds a great deal to the team offensively....though he does detract a lot on defense. Lefty match up, last game of the year, defensive liability. Not a big deal. He was in the game later and could have lost the .300 AVG since the game went extra. Some people on the media flat out sucks
October 3, 200519 yr well going into the doubleheader, ted williams was batting .3995 or something that rounded up and that wasn't good enough for him so thats why he played though i'm not saying he would've sat if he came in batting .406.
October 4, 200519 yr Gee, lets just add more BS so all the Mut fans can find another reason to say:Â "OH MY GOD! CARLOS IS COMING HERE!"Â :shifty
October 4, 200519 yr Dave Hyde writes the most rediculously negative articles anyway, so this doesn't suprise me at all. All the misdirected hate given to Lebatard should be thrust on this turd.
October 4, 200519 yr He's probably taking a small detail and making it a huge story Considering Delgado did nothing but carry this team over the stretch run especially when Miguel faltered, I'll side with him over a media reporter that could just be looking for something to write Even if it is true, I don't care. It's not like he went clubbing instead of playing against our archrivals in the middle of a pennant race. We were better off playing youngsters anyways, and Conine is going to play regardless, so Delgado's absence from the starting lineup affords someone like Chris Aguila the chance to prove themselves one last time this season. Â
October 4, 200519 yr Didn't Delgado have like 3 errors in Dontrelle's start before Sunday...you don't think that maybe had something to do with the day off? He did pinch hit, and come through, when we needed him.
October 4, 200519 yr Dave Hyde writes the most rediculously negative articles anyway, so this doesn't suprise me at all. All the misdirected hate given to Lebatard should be thrust on this turd. I think Hyde is one of the better columnists in terms of writing positive articles about the Marlins.
October 4, 200519 yr I had the same thought as Pierremvp1 (through Hyde's words) when I saw Delgado wasn't in the lineup Sunday but in the case of Ted Williams, it was management who offered him the option of sitting out to protect his average, not Ted's idea. The same may have been true here as well. We have no way of knowing. I was sitting with a member of this board, when, during an early inning (I believe the third, maybe the fourth), I saw Delgado sneakily reach out from the steps of the dugout (never stepping on the field) and grab a weighted bat from the on-deck circle and disappear, I suspect, under the stadium to the batting cages.  Hyde may not have seen this sitting in the press section. Or as some have opined above he just may have been seeking to find something negative to taint the player. We'll never know what was Hyde's motive. What we do know is that once in the game, the way Jack was moving players (Jack used 14 position players in the game and had Mordy as maybe the only guy left who could play the outfield if the game went on several more innings and Delgado wanted to protect his average), it would have been difficult for him to come out of the game once in.  That said had he failed in his first at bat as he did in his second, he put it all on the line in the end.
October 4, 200519 yr I can't help but remember the story of Ted Williams opting to play in the last game of his .400 season, at the risk of falling below .400. Â Â That's not entirely true, he had a .399 batting average on the last day of the season which consisted of a doube header, in the double header he went 6-8 which brought his average up to .406.
October 4, 200519 yr Author If anyone has a link to this article it might help our members who didn't get a chance to read it themselves. I'd post the link myself but I'm computer illiterate. Let everyone interpret what was written their own way. I've given my take. . . I will say that the article was not at all a Delgado bashing article. It was a long story with merely 2 sentences somewhat devoted to Delgado. I'm not bashing Delgado and IMO Dave Hyde was not bashing him either. Just implying the situation that Delgado found himself in and his reaction to it.
October 4, 200519 yr I can't help but remember the story of Ted Williams opting to play in the last game of his .400 season, at the risk of falling below .400.   That's not entirely true, he had a .399 batting average on the last day of the season which consisted of a doube header, in the double header he went 6-8 which brought his average up to .406. Actually Ted was hitting .3995 which would have been rounded up to .400. There was only one Ted Williams, baseball star of the first magnitude, war hero, and an american icon. I was lucky enough to see him play for a generation and regardless of Boog's misquided theory that ballplayers today are better than those who preceded them, there never was and there never will be a ballplayer who could hold a candle to the Splendid Splinter.
October 4, 200519 yr Author I can't help but remember the story of Ted Williams opting to play in the last game of his .400 season, at the risk of falling below .400.   That's not entirely true, he had a .399 batting average on the last day of the season which consisted of a doube header, in the double header he went 6-8 which brought his average up to .406. Actually Ted was hitting .3995 which would have been rounded up to .400. There was only one Ted Williams, baseball star of the first magnitude, war hero, and an american icon. I was lucky enough to see him play for a generation and regardless of Boog's misquided theory that ballplayers today are better than those who preceded them, there never was and there never will be a ballplayer who could hold a candle to the Splendid Splinter. Well.....I never had the pleasure of seeing Ted Williams in person. I'll have to take your word for it. I did see Willie Mays in person many times....and I've never seen anyone who had his innate baserunning skills. I wholeheartedly agree that this is one of Boog's opinions that's misguided. Some things just don't translate to stats......you just had to be there. Boog wasn't.
October 4, 200519 yr Everyone is free to think what they may. But as far as I'm concerned Delgado came in and put Dontrelle in line to get his 23rd win. You can't ask for any more than that.
October 4, 200519 yr Here's the entire article. Draw your own conclusions. I personally don't know what to think because the way Hyde phrased his writing, he didn't indicate whether Delgado asked to be kept out of the lineup in order to keep his average over .300 or if Jack decided to keep him out because he wanted Delgado to finish with a season over .300. Though I tend to believe the former to be true, I don't care all that much either way.   Before Jack McKeon walked out of his office to tell his players this was it, his final Marlins game, he got a visit at 12:15 p.m. from outfielder Juan Encarnacion. This was less than an hour before the scheduled first pitch. The other Marlins players had stretched, warmed up and were preparing to play the year's final game. Encarnacion had just arrived at the stadium, for some reason, and saw he was penciled in the lineup. Batting sixth, as usual. "My wrist hurts," he told the Marlins manager. "What? Your wrist hurts?" McKeon asked. "I can't play," Encarnacion said. And you wonder why McKeon became so upset with this team this season. You wonder why he yelled at some players. You wonder why he ruffled some egos. What you don't need to wonder about anymore is why, after this 7-6 win, just after his eyes had grown teary in saying goodbye, McKeon's eyes were blazing even as his mouth said he didn't want to get into it, that it wasn't his issue anymore, that he just wanted to thank everyone for the magical year of 2003 and go through the door of retirement. "Well, I'll say just one thing," he said. He shook his head and nudged a listener with his elbow, as he always does to underline a point. "This new breed [of player]," he said. "You see something that needs correcting, and tell them, and keep after them about it because it can cost games, and they get all upset. They just want you to pat them on the back and say they're doing great so you don't hurt their feelings or their confidence." Everyone leaves. That's the only rule in sports. But there was something sad and final Sunday to McKeon, at 74, leaving the Marlins just as he should, as he must, after a season where his team became baseball's biggest underachievers two years after being its biggest overachievers. But do you know what he brought to that magical run at the World Series title, the one that shocked the Cubs, broke the Yankees and made McKeon a hero not just to South Florida but to "seasoned citizens" everywhere, as he called them? He brought it the same directness that he did this season. Oh, he brought it a bunch of cigar smoke, 1960s baseball stories and a penchant for forgetting players' names to the point he'd try to make a joke of it by walking by Jeff Conine and saying, "Hi, Fred." "Hi, Pete," Conine would answer. But, mainly, he gave that 2003 team some old-school accountability. He chewed out Brad Penny for sloppy work habits. He told Josh Beckett to grow up. He once pulled over rookie Miguel Cabrera and, through a translator, asked if he had given his all on a fly ball that dropped in. "This is the big leagues," McKeon told him. Do you remember how pivotal Penny, Beckett and Cabrera were that October? But somehow this big-league accountability got lost this year, along with McKeon's voice to his players in his third season. You could see it in their eyes. They were tired of him. It happens in sports. And it happened on these Marlins, right to the final game, when pitcher Dontrelle Willis was trying to win the Cy Young Award as the league's top pitcher and Encarnacion didn't even bother to show up until less than an hour before the game and then didn't play. And Carlos Delgado, who had a fine season, also wasn't in the lineup so his .301 batting average wouldn't slip below .300 (He did come in as a pinch-hitter). A.J. Burnett, of course, already had been shipped home after losing six straight starts and then blaming the coaching because, well, that's evidently how people act on his planet. So there it was, a season sunk, and a good man, too. McKeon stepped down as manager Sunday so he wouldn't be fired and becomes a consultant to team owner Jeffrey Loria. Whatever that means. "That probably means driving the tractor back at home and smoking Padrone cigars," he said. "Wrong," Loria said beside him. McKeon didn't want to leave. That was obvious. Yes, he had promised his family this would be his final year. But a year ago his wife thought that would be it until they were riding home the day after the final game. He told her then he'd just signed on for another year. "Who knows, maybe someone will take another chance on an old man," he said. The problem with having a storybook season like 2003 is that the book doesn't end there. It never does in sports. For McKeon it ended, an hour after the final game, relating how he had told his players just before taking the field on Sunday that he was quitting. "I said every year at this time it's a sad one because of the last day, if you're not going to the playoffs," he said. "And I said those players who don't have rings, I hope they get them. I said, `If I've offended anyone for getting on them or hurt their feelings ...''' The baseball lifer's eyes twinkled in ridicule as he repeated that thought. "` ... hurt their feelings, well, that's baseball.' Then I said, `Let's go out and win Dontrelle his 23rd game and get him the Cy Young.''' They went on the field to play then. Well, most of them did. And that was the sad story of this disappointing season, right to the final day, when the manager who fought the most and pushed the hardest to save it gets sent packing with all his 2003 memories. Dave Hyde can be reached at [email protected]  http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/basebal...-sports-marlins
October 4, 200519 yr And Carlos Delgado, who had a fine season, also wasn't in the lineup so his .301 batting average wouldn't slip below .300 (He did come in as a pinch-hitter). A.J. Burnett, of course, already had been shipped home after losing six straight starts and then blaming the coaching because, well, that's evidently how people act on his planet.  The whole paragraph is clearly embellished by Hyde to make his point easier and more flowy. He clearly ignored cause and effect regarding AJ being sent home, and it's likely that McKeon told Delgado to take the day off. If Encarnacion's getting called out in the paper, you have to believe Delgado would have been too...
October 4, 200519 yr I am more upset although not suprised at all by Encarncion the guys effort s?cks and there is a reason why someone with all his physical gifts is merely a run of the mill player. I will be very happy when we drop his dead weight and before anyone rattles off a game or two that he got a big hit i can think of ten games to your one in which he had a chance to get a big hit and swung wildly and struck out. No discipline and no character Ency s?cks !!!
October 4, 200519 yr I can't help but remember the story of Ted Williams opting to play in the last game of his .400 season, at the risk of falling below .400.   That's not entirely true, he had a .399 batting average on the last day of the season which consisted of a doube header, in the double header he went 6-8 which brought his average up to .406. Actually Ted was hitting .3995 which would have been rounded up to .400. There was only one Ted Williams, baseball star of the first magnitude, war hero, and an american icon. I was lucky enough to see him play for a generation and regardless of Boog's misquided theory that ballplayers today are better than those who preceded them, there never was and there never will be a ballplayer who could hold a candle to the Splendid Splinter. Well.....I never had the pleasure of seeing Ted Williams in person. I'll have to take your word for it. I did see Willie Mays in person many times....and I've never seen anyone who had his innate baserunning skills. I wholeheartedly agree that this is one of Boog's opinions that's misguided. Some things just don't translate to stats......you just had to be there. Boog wasn't. :thumbup
October 4, 200519 yr I can't help but remember the story of Ted Williams opting to play in the last game of his .400 season, at the risk of falling below .400.   That's not entirely true, he had a .399 batting average on the last day of the season which consisted of a doube header, in the double header he went 6-8 which brought his average up to .406. Actually Ted was hitting .3995 which would have been rounded up to .400. There was only one Ted Williams, baseball star of the first magnitude, war hero, and an american icon. I was lucky enough to see him play for a generation and regardless of Boog's misquided theory that ballplayers today are better than those who preceded them, there never was and there never will be a ballplayer who could hold a candle to the Splendid Splinter. I didn't realize it would have been rounded up. You certainly were lucky to see him play, i've got a Ted Williams signed ball, one of my most precious items.
October 4, 200519 yr All these articles about McKeon show that he didn't change, the players did.. which is what I've said all along.. Damn.... all these stories are depressing me. I feel like my grandfather is moving away or something.. I'm gonna miss that old man. He took a lot of undeserved heat...
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