Red Sox Take Stand For Coaches, Put Japan Trip In Jeopardy
Written by Chris Roberts on March 19th, 2008 | 1 Comment(Full disclosure: I am a Sox fan, and I’d gladly buy a beer for my boy “Dusty Pedroika”.)
From ESPN:
Mike Lowell has told The Boston Globe the team voted unanimously not to take the field for their final spring training game or to board the plane later Wednesday for Japan.
Manager Terry Francona and his players were upset after learning staff members are not going to get a $40,000 stipend. The Boston Herald reported players insisted part of their agreement to make the trip included the fee — for them and the coaches.
“I did not have an off day yesterday. I had the phone glued to my ear because I was promised some answers and I haven’t even received a phone call,” Francona said Wednesday. “So I’m a little bit stuck. What I want to do this morning is get excited to play a baseball game and what I ended up doing is apologizing to the coaches and being humiliated.”
The World Series champions are scheduled to begin their season against Oakland on March 25 and 26.
The Red Sox clubhouse was closed to reporters because of the dispute and the team had not taken the field for batting practice before its last scheduled spring training game in Florida against Toronto.
“We had an agreement,” Curt Schilling, one of a handful of Red Sox players who talked with Major League Baseball on ground rules for the trip, told ESPN’s Claire Smith.
Rumor has it that the A’s will be making the same move.
Already, today’s game is postponed, and Daisuke Matsuzaka, who was supposed to be today’s starting pitcher, has been reassigned to a minor league game this afternoon at 1:00 — I’m thinking he’ll be throwing for the Pawtucket Red Sox against the Rochester Red Wings, as it matches what’s being reported. [I was right. -- C.R.]
Question on your way out: it’s obviously not for the money, as the players stand to lose some if the League doesn’t go their way, so when was the last time we saw an entire team unanimously back their support staff and coaches at their potential loss like this?
UPDATE (12:51PM): Red Sox players are now out on the field stretching. ESPN is reporting that the first pitch will be thrown at 1:10PM.
Tags: boston red sox, daisuke matsuzaka, japan, mike lowell, mlb, oakland athletics, pawtucket red sox, rochester red wings, toronto blue jays
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March 19th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I’d like to think that most of the players are stand up guys that would do this for their staff. Just look at the previous post about the Yankees, don’t you think they would do the same?
I wanted to go on that Japan trip so bad. For $5000 you got to fly out there with the staff and stay in the same hotel as the players plus tickets to all 3 games. That would be a blast.