As the story goes: When Jeffrey Loria owned the Expos, he was obsessed with Derek Jeter. So he ordered his general manager, Jim Beattie, to try to make a deal with the Yankees and to give up whatever he had to. Beattie offered Yankees GM Brian Cashman Vladimir Guerrero and Pedro Martinez. Stunned, Cashman told Beattie, "I can't trade Derek Jeter."Well, that is certainly an interesting tidbit. What a monumental trade that would have been.
Too bad it's 100%, easily-disproved horseshit.
As Mike Bates (MLB Daily Dish) explains:
Pedro was traded by the Expos to the Red Sox in November of 1997, three months before Cashman was elevated to GM by the Yankees. So there's no way that Cashman, as the GM of the Yankees, could have acquired Pedro Martinez from the Expos. For another, Jeffrey Loria didn't buy into the Expos until December of 1999, so he wouldn't have been around to order Jim Beattie to do anything. ...As SoSH's PedroKsBambino notes, the Globe's once-iconic Sunday sports section has devolved, with Cafardo as the paper's top baseball writer, into a collection of "lies, buffet-warmed hottakes, and blatantly spoon-fed puff items for agents".
Not only doesn't it pass the smell test, but it's fundamentally impossible. ... But otherwise, yeah, cute story, Nick. Next time, spend five minutes on Baseball Reference.com.
... yeah, cute story, Nick. Next time, spend five minutes on Baseball Reference.com.
ReplyDeleteBaseball-Reference.com is such a FANTASTIC source of information. It's been my go to source for years, even before it fell into favor with the mainstream media. The cost of the Play Index subscription is well worth it. Sean Forman, at this point, should have a vote in selecting members of the Hall of Fame.