“I think it’s good — I haven’t seen a live pitch in like two weeks — so it’s not going to hurt me to come and make sure everything’s good and get a little bit of timing. I don’t think it’s going to have a huge impact on getting back and ready for the big leagues, because at this point in the season; two weeks, you can pretty much jump back in there without any ill affects. If it was a little longer, maybe. But I’m happy to come down here if they want me to do it. It’s better than sitting around at Yankee Stadium, at least I’ll get some at-bats.”
“I’ll play tonight and tomorrow night, and then be activated on Wednesday on the expanded rosters.”
“Man, it’s been a real experience (coming to the Yankees), there’s no doubt. It was way more emotional than I thought it would be. When you’ve been in one place as long as I was in Houston, it’s like you don’t have a home anymore. You’re kind of adrift, you’re kind of a mercenary or something. You’re trying to fit in with a bunch of new guys and on top all that, it’s a team that has extremely high expectations and you want to perform well. There’s all that stuff you kind of have to process and go through. I feel a lot better now than I did say a week or two weeks ago, when things were kind of still so up in the air. My family was there and I’m here, and there’s a million little things like that which have settled now, so I’m feeling a lot better.”
“I still haven’t done much with the Yankees, but you understand that those fans have a different level of expectation than most fans do. You have a lot shorter leash there than you would anywhere else. But the game itself is the game. People ask me if it’s totally different. No. When you step out there on the field, you don’t really notice the fans. You’re so locked in to what you’re trying to do. It’s after the fact that they come into play; after you make the out or after the play is over with, that’s when you start to notice them a little bit. But when you’re in the batters box, at least for me when I’m out there on the field or in the batters box, I’m focused on what I’m trying to do, not ‘Oh man, this crowd hates me.’ I liken to be a visiting player. I get booed on the road all the time, I’m used to that. Because I haven’t really been a Yankee for very long, it felt like I’m visiting Yankee Stadium and they’re booing me because I’m a visiting player.”
“I didn’t give (Houston fans) much reason to boo. I’m sure the Yankee fans are the same way, they have a little more tolerance for a young player, a rookie that’s just up. I haven’t heard them boo any of the younger guys. They understand that it’s step up, you’re in the major leagues whether it’s New York or Pittsburgh. It’s one of those things where they have an appreciation for that. For a guy like me, they expect me to come in and hit three home runs the first night and if it doesn’t happen, they’re not going to be happy about it.”
“I think (I’ll DH both days). I don’t know, they may want me to play first one of the days, which would be fine. But right now, I’m obviously DH’ing tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll probably talk to Joe and see what they want me to do.”
“(Does playing the field matter?) Not really. I’m here to try to get some timing and test the ankle and make sure that everything’s good with it.”
“It feels great, it really does. I’ve probably been ready to go for a while, but because of the situation with Alex, they had to make a move. Originally, they didn’t think they were going to DL him — we were down a middle infielder, so they had to do something and they put me on the DL so they could call up Nunez. They had to have some depth. I was probably ready to go about a week ago, but it doesn’t hurt to take an extra week to get it right.”
“(Clemens) We’re not real close as far as I don’t talk to him on the phone every day. He lives probably three miles from me, and I think I’ve seen him twice in a couple years. I love Roger as far as the relationship we had when we were teammates. He’s a great guy, he’s a great teammate, he was fun to have around. Clearly, in the situation that he’s in, it’s a bad deal. I don’t wish that on anybody. I feel for him and for his family. He’s got a kid, Koby, that I know pretty well. You feel for that whole family because I’m sure he’s having to answer questions about it until this thing gets sorted out. It’s just not good.”
“This is going to sound bizarre because the first part of my career was sort of at the end of that era, so to speak, but I never even thought about it. People have a conception that everybody was juicing in the clubhouse and there were steroids everywhere and everybody knew about it and everybody was complicit, and that’s not…it never even dawned on me that this guy could be throwing 100 and not naturally, I just never thought about it. In retrospect, I’m a guy that would love to see everybody that used outed. I’d love for all those names to come out. The problem with what happened in that era is there’s an unrealistic expectation now on offensive performance. It used to be, if you hit 30 home runs and drove in 100, you had a great year. Then, there got to be a period of time where there were so many guys doing that. So the guys that really were doing it — all natural — they don’t look as good because there are a lot of guys that were able to do that. From that respect, selfishly, I’d like to say I’d never touched anything, I’d never seen anybody do it, I don’t really know that much about it wheh I was a young player. I felt like I had some pretty good years, and I’d like for those to stand on their own merit and not to suffer under this cloud of suspicion that everybody in that era has to weather. Obviously, it’s not possible, but I’d like for there to be a reckoning, if you will, for the guys who did it.”
“Let me say this, I don’t know anybody’s name that I heard (in the Mitchell Report) that I didn’t think…in other words, I didn’t think anybody wasn’t using that came out. If your name was on that list, those were a lot of the guys I suspected myself when it started to all come out. There wasn’t anybody where I was like, ‘Oh man, I know he didn’t do it, so why is he on that list?’”
“Most of the guys that were on it have come out and said yes. Roger’s a guy that has been vehement in his denial, and he’s a friend of mine, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until this thing kind of resolves itself. Because of that, if he was found guilty of doing whatever it is, it’s not like I’d be so surprised that I’d fall over in a faint or something. But, by the same token, I’m willing to give him every benefit of the doubt…you’re so adamant in your denial. If you think about it, he’s the one that wanted to go to Congress. Why would somebody be pushing this agenda? It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Roger’s sort of a special case and I’d forgotten that he was on there.”
“Andy (Pettitte) and I are as good as friends as you can possibly be. He’s probably my best friend. I just…I was surprised, but once I found out more about the reasoning behind it…obviously, I can say this, but nobody will buy into it. But there’s a difference between taking steroids for the purpose of enhancing your performance; taking a cycle — and what Andy did, which was take HGH, that’s a different deal for the purpose of trying to come back from an injury. You have to know Andy. I can sit here and tell you if Andy says it, you can take it to the bank. If he said I did it to get over an injury and not to get a competitive advantage, you can believe him. I mean, nobody’s going to believe that because everybody always says that kind of stuff. But Andy is truly is one of the most honest guys I know. He’s got the most integrity of anybody I’ve been around. So after having talked to him about it, I understand why he did it. He’s such a competitor. He’s one of the few players I’ve played with that truly feels a burden, like we get paid a ton of money to go out and do a job, but he’s burdened by that. So when he can’t do it, he feels like he’s stealing money. He’s like, “I should give it back.’ And I’m like, “Now wait, don’t do that.’ But, really, that’s his mindset. So to know him and understand that and talk with him…after it initially came out, I was like, ‘Man.’ But I got a chance to talk with him, but now I understand what was going on. That doesn’t play in the media, but that’s the truth. Everybody that was ever touched by PED’s, they’re going to lump them all into one category and that’s that. But that’s the consequence for doing something you shouldn’t have done. He’ll tell you that just as quickly as I will.”
“I think a lot of it has to do with the way the situation is handled. It speaks to Andy’s character that he was willing to say he made a mistake. Here’s what I did, let me completely honest about this to the detriment of me and my friends and family and let me be honest and above board about this. Most people feel like Barry and some of the other guys are hiding something and they’re unwilling to admit to any wrongdoing at all and they’re hiding behind lawyers and it’s just shenanigans. People can see through that, and I think they don’t appreciate it. That’s why they may give a different reaction for Andy than you would for other guys.”
“I just think that if something did happen, that you’re always better off and saying this is what happened, and here’s why. And I think people can accept that. I think what people don’t appreciate is if they feel like things aren’t above board. Clearly, the Pete Rose situation, he’s paying the price. To me, Roger’s a Hall of Famer no matter what. No matter if they come up with irrefutable proof that he did something. To me, what he did even before that period of time is Hall of Fame worthy. I don’t think that should be a question, although it’s going to be.”
“I think Pete should be in the Hall of Fame. If you’re going to paint with a broad brush, just look at that era and the best players go to the Hall of Fame. It’s impossible, even if you take steroids out of the equation, how can you compare what Barry Bonds was able to do pre-steroids, if you will, to what Babe Ruth did. They played in such different eras. So if you’re looking at statistical integrity, the argument doesn’t wash just because you can’t compare. What you have to do, I think, is determine maybe when did this start or make your best guess. Obviously, this is a job for the writers. Then, just say the best players from that era, they go. Or, you can take the other side, and say they’re all out. Nobody can get in because they’re tainted. I guess a third possibility would be, you take a guy like Barry. if it comes out that he’s guilty, you look at what he was able to do before that period in his career, he was a Hall of Famer. There’s no doubt. Roger, Hall of Famer, no doubt. No question. Some of the guys, you look at them, and it’s this guy may not have been if he didn’t have a little help.”
Mike Ashmore, mashmore98 AT gmail.com
