Best I've ever seen: RHP Jack Morris

Best I've ever seen: RHP Jack Morris
Sunday, October 28, 2007Paul HoynesPlain Dealer Reporter
The best right-hander I've ever seen isn't in the Hall of Fame and I have no idea why.

He won 254 games and on Oct. 24, 1991, pitched one of the greatest games in World Series history. Anyone who saw it, especially the Atlanta Braves, would have to agree.

Jack Morris pitched 10 innings in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series to lead the Twins to a 1-0 victory over Atlanta. Morris, 37, threw a 126-pitch shutout on three days' rest after starting Games 1 and 4.

Twins manager Tom Kelly told Morris he was done after the ninth inning. Morris changed his mind.

"I talked to him, told him I had a lot left," said Morris. "I told him, 'We don't play tomorrow.' "

Kelly relented, saying, "What the hell, it's only a ballgame."

Some ballgame.

Morris struck out eight, walked two and allowed seven hits in 10 innings. Wrote a Minneapolis sportswriter, “Morris could have outlasted Methuselah.”

The 6-3, 200-pound Morris was not the warm and cuddly sort. He wore a bushy mustache and was constantly in need of two things — a shave and an attitude adjustment.

Morris won 198 games for the Tigers, but manager Sparky Anderson hated to take him out of a game. Not because Morris would complain vocally, but because he’d slam the ball into Anderson’s hand when he came to the mound. Anderson said it hurt.

He was rude to reporters, male and female alike. He was cocky, too.

Morris was one of the first pitchers to master the split-fingered fastball. Tigers pitching coach Roger Craig taught it to him.

Once when the Indians were playing Detroit, Morris said Ty Cobb couldn’t hit the splitter.
Morris said he’d seen old films of Cobb and could tell by the way the Georgia Peach held and swung the bat that he couldn’t hit the splitter. What Morris was really saying was that Cobb, the greatest Tiger in history, couldn’t hit him.

Morris liked to throw at Indians leadoff hitter Kenny Lofton’s legs. After one particular game, in which Morris made Lofton dance for much of the afternoon, Tribe manager Mike Hargrove expressed his displeasure to reporters.

When the reporters relayed the information to Morris, he growled, “Tell Mike those are sliders. The same sliders he couldn’t hit when he faced me.”

In short, he was just what every manager wanted from a No. 1 starter — snappish, mean and talented.

Morris started 14 opening days and at one point made 500 consecutive starts without missing a turn in the rotation. He was on the disabled list twice in an 18-year career.

He won 162 games in the 1980s, the most by any pitcher.

He threw a no-hitter against Chicago on April 7, 1984. From 1979 through 1992, according to ESPN’s Jayson Stark, Morris won 233 games compared to Nolan Ryan’s 168 when both men were in their prime.

Ryan is in the Hall of Fame.

Morris is still on the outside looking in.

The Indians signed Morris in 1994 for their first year at Jacobs Field. They were looking for veterans to season a young team that would dominate the AL Central for the next seven years.

Morris still had his temper and splitter, but he was 39. He’d injured his right shoulder in 1993 with Toronto and the end was near.

During a tight spot in one game, second baseman Carlos Baerga came in to check on Morris at the mound.

“What do you want?” snapped Morris. “Get back to second base.”

It soon became clear that Morris had other things on his mind besides baseball. Catcher Sandy Alomar Jr., went to the mound once to see what was bothering him. Morris was crying because his girlfriend had broken up with him.

He started leaving the team between starts so he could help get the wheat harvested on his farm in Montana. Management tolerated it for a while, but Morris’ conditioning and performance suffered.

“Hey, it’s crunch time on the farm,” said Morris.

To which Hargrove replied, “It’s crunch time here, too.”

The Indians released Morris on Aug. 10, 1994. He won 10 games that season, his last in the big leagues.

Rickey being Rickey in LF

Rickey being Rickey in LF
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Paul Hoynes
Plain Dealer Reporter

The most vivid memory I have of Rickey Henderson, the best left fielder I've ever seen, had nothing to do with what made him fa mous. Henderson, the best leadoff hitter to ever work a count, stole more bases and scored more runs than any player in history.

My clearest Rickey moment came at the Rogers Centre, then called SkyDome in Toronto. Henderson was batting leadoff against the Indians.

On this particular day, he was facing Jose Mesa. How old is the memory? It was 1993 and Mesa, two years away from becoming the closer that wrapped Cleveland in his arms before breaking its heart, was still a starter.

It was an afternoon game, the SkyDome roof was open and Henderson was taking his time getting into the batter's box. Mesa fumed while he waited. Before it all turned bad for Mesa in Cleveland, he was a decent guy with a sense of humor.

On the mound, he tended toward snappishness.

When Henderson finally stepped into the box, after much gyrating, digging and adjusting, Mesa sent him ankles over elbows with his first pitch of the afternoon. It was the best knockdown pitch I've seen, and nothing happened.

Henderson got up and stepped back in the box without protest. The umpire didn't give a warning, and Mesa continued pitching.

A future Hall of Famer had just been flipped like a baseball card in the wind, and the game continued without a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. Things have changed since then.

Henderson played from 1979 to 2003. He came to the big leagues with Oakland at 20. He retired with the Dodgers at 44.

I saw a lot him because he spent most of his career in the American League. He looked cool and played cool.

When Henderson hit a home run, he'd take the big Cadillac turn around first base, running sideways for a while. I remember him wearing wrap-around sunglasses when he stole bases. He looked like Robocop sliding head-first into the bag.

Henderson's game was a constant battle between substance and flash.

On routine fly balls, he'd position himself under the ball, but wouldn't just catch it. He'd snatch it out of the air, crisscrossing his arms in the process like a man on a deserted island desperately signaling a low-flying plane.

He called it the snatch catch.

Secretly, I always hoped he'd drop one. If he did, I never saw it.

Henderson, built like an NFL tailback, hit out of a crouch. Jim Murray, the Hall of Fame columnist for the Los Angeles Times, said the crouch reduced Henderson's strike zone to the "size of Hitler's heart." Now that's a line that will get you into Cooperstown.

The small strike zone, and a good eye, helped Henderson draw the second-most walks in history at 2,190. He held the record when he retired, but was passed by Barry Bonds when the National League started walking Bonds three and four times per game. Henderson held his speed. He set the major-league record with 130 steals in 1982. Sixteen years later, he stole 66 bases for the A's in 1998. Henderson, born on Christmas Day, was 39.

Baseball is filled with unwritten rules. When it comes to base stealing, it's not polite to steal when you have a big lead or to pad your own stats. Henderson never worried about such things.

No one steals 1,406 bases by following protocol. On May 1, 1982, at Cleveland Stadium, the Indians had to put utility infielder Mike Fischlin behind the plate late in the game. Henderson stole second and third against the overmatched Fischlin in an 8-2 Oakland victory. It probably wasn't Henderson's greatest moment, but it was, in one of his favorite sayings, "Rickey being Rickey."

The Best I've Ever Seen: DH Frank Thomas

The Best I've Ever Seen: DH Frank Thomas
Sunday, September 30, 2007

The Big Hurt doesn't cause as much pain as he once did. He's looked every bit

of 39 years old this season while making his way around the bases in an ex aggerated hop, skip and jump for Toronto. It's the best he can do on a surgically repaired left ankle that will ache for the rest of his life.

Running never paid the bills for Frank Thomas. Hitting still does.

He's the best designated hitter I've ever seen because of that. Thomas spent his first 16 seasons with the Chicago White Sox. When he stepped into the batter's box at U.S. Cellular Field, it reminded me of the Sears Tower in downtown Chicago with a bat in its hands.

Thomas wasn't quite 110 stories tall, but at 6-5 and pushing 280 pounds, he was plenty big enough.

Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn installed the DH in the American League in 1973 to put muscle and runs back in a pitching-dominated game. Kuhn probably had a hitter like Thomas in mind when he did it.

Nobody starts out as a DH. Players either get thrown into the job when they're young while management tries to create an opening for them elsewhere, or they back into it because of injury or age.

Then again, maybe they just can't catch the baseball.

In 1991, Thomas' first full season in the big leagues, he was Chicago's regular DH. He soon moved to first base and won consecutive AL MVP awards in 1993 and 1994. By 1998, Thomas was the White Sox's regular DH.

Thomas went into this weekend with 1,240 games at DH and 971 at first base.

DHs come in all shapes and sizes.

Edgar Martinez, regarded by some as the best DH ever, wasn't a big man at 5-11 and 210 pounds. A third baseman by trade, Martinez played 1,412 games at DH for Seattle. Over 18 seasons, he hit .312 with 309 homers and 2,247 hits.

Paul Molitor, 6-0, 185, came from the same mold. Molitor, the first Hall of Famer to play more games at DH than any other position, ended his career with 3,319 hits and 234 homers. Molitor appeared in 1,174 games at DH.
When I think of the DH, I think of power, not singles.

Guys like Thomas, David Ortiz, Andre Thornton, Travis Hafner, Don Baylor and Cecil Fielder are my idea of a DH - big guys who can dent a baseball and carry a team. General managers can move hitters like that into the middle of the lineup and not worry about them for the next five years.

Thomas certainly has that kind of power. On June 29, he became the 21st player to hit 500 homers. Through Friday he was at 513 and counting.

"I'm going to stick around until I hit 600," he told Toronto reporters in June.

Thomas brings more to the plate than a big swing. He has great knowledge of his strike zone, which makes him even more dangerous. Thomas has walked 100 or more times in 10 seasons, while striking out 100 or more times in just three seasons.

In Chicago, his managers used to get mad at him. They wanted him to be more aggressive, but he knew what worked for him.

Thomas has a career .303 batting average, .421 on-base percentage and .561 slugging percentage.

When Thomas was at his peak, the White Sox went to the postseason once, getting swept by Seattle in the 2000 division series. In 2005, when Chicago won the World Series, Thomas spent most of the season on the disabled list because of an ankle injury.

It was suggested the reason the White Sox won their first World Series since 1917 was because Thomas' prickly personality was no longer at the center of the clubhouse.

Be that as it may, when Thomas left the club after that year to sign with Oakland, he did so as best hitter in White Sox history. He's the franchise leader in homers, RBI, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

For Paul Hoynes, Tigers' Ivan Rodriguez is best catcher he's seen
Sunday, August 26, 2007Paul HoynesPlain Dealer Reporter
The best catcher I've ever seen was not happy.

Jack Morris had just hit Ivan Rodriguez on the wrist with a pitch in a game between the Indians and Texas in 1994. Rodriguez, plotting revenge, slid hard into second base on a force play in the same inning. He was out, but he took out shortstop Omar Vizquel with a knee injury on a slide meant to injure.

After the game, manager Mike Hargrove was seething. When a reporter asked about Rodriguez's slide, Hargrove threw a paper cup full of pop and ice out his office door and into a wall across the hallway. The brown pop slid down the white wall as Hargrove raved.

Not only was Hargrove mad at Rodriguez for putting Vizquel on the disabled list, he was upset at reliever Jose Mesa for not hitting Rodriguez later in the game. Looking back, could the Mesa-Vizquel feud been blooming even then?

Rodriguez, however, paid a price.

Whenever the two teams played in the wake of Vizquel's injury, Rodriguez was hit by an Indians pitcher. He accepted it.

Finally, Charles Nagy hit him during a game in Cleveland and Rodriguez spread his hands, as if to say, "Has my bill been paid?"

The Indians didn't hit Rodriguez again, at least not intentionally.

Catching is a contact job. The ball can thud into your mitt between 100 and 200 times a game. Foul tips, wild pitches, stray bats and base runners collide with your body.

There are freak injuries. Sandy Alomar Jr. twice split the webbing on his throwing hand trying to catch Tom Candiotti's knuckleball. A hitter's backswing once broke his cheekbone
Contact and pain become second nature. Some catchers even like it.

Rodriguez may have that kind of streak running through him because it defined his best game.

In Game 4 of the National League division series in 2003 between Florida and San Francisco, with the score tied, 5-5, in the eighth inning, Rodriguez collided with Giants catcher Yorvit Torrealba while trying to score on a Miguel Cabrera single. Rodriguez knocked the ball loose from Torrealba, allowing himself and Derrek Lee to score for a 7-5 lead.

In the ninth, after the Giants made it 7-6 with two outs, Jeffrey Hammonds sent a soft single to left field with J.T. Snow on second base. Jeff Conine made a one-hop throw to Rodriguez. He buried the ball in his glove as Snow crashed into him.

Rodriguez held on, Snow was out and the Marlins eliminated the Giants to move onto the National League Championship Series and, eventually, a World Series title. Elias Sports Bureau said it was the only time in postseason history that the tying run was thrown out at the plate in a game-ending situation.

What better moment could a catcher have? A pitcher has a no-hitter. A power hitter has a four-homer game. A catcher, defining his craft, blocks the plate, saves the game, sends his team deeper into the postseason and rides off into the sunset.

Rodriguez hit .353 (6-for-17) with one homer and six RBI in the division series; .321 (9-for-28) with two homers and 10 RBI in the NLCS; and .273 (6-for-22) in the World Series that year.

He was 31, supposedly on the downside of his career after 12 seasons with Texas when he signed with the Marlins for one year. Teams wouldn't offer him a multiyear deal because they were afraid of the herniated disks in his back. The deal paid off.

Florida won its second World Series in six years and Rodriguez signed a $40 million contract with Detroit before the 2004 season. It seemed like strictly a money-driven move at the time, but Rodriguez was back in the World Series by 2006.

Rodriguez's game, even today at 35, is well- rounded. His arm, not as strong as when he could stop a running game with a mere glance to first base, is still dangerous. Offensively, he's no longer the AL MVP that he was in 1999, but he's still productive.

He calls a solid game and is as combative as ever behind the plate.

Rodriguez, like many players, has been tainted by steroid rumors. The rumors grew when he reported to spring training in 2005 significantly thinner than he'd been in the past. Rodriguez's body makeover coincided with MLB's stricter steroid-testing policy and being named as a steroid user in a book by former Rangers teammate Jose Canseco.

Did he or didn't he? The next time that question probably comes into play will be when Rodriguez becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame five years after his retirement.

Before the Johnny Bench e-mails start, please consider the parameters of this series. It is about the best players I've seen since I started covering the Indians in 1983. Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson always said that every conversation about the best catcher who ever lived should start and end with Bench.

Far be it from me to argue with Anderson, but here's my problem. Bench's last year was 1983, which was my first. So you can see why I took a different direction.

Former Cleveland Indians Manny Ramirez is the best right fielder Paul Hoynes ever saw
Sunday, July 15, 2007Paul Hoynes Plain Dealer Reporter

The face of the best right fielder I've ever seen was expressionless. On a table in the middle of the visitor's locker room at the Metrodome was his suitcase. It had been slashed over and over again with a knife.

The pale blue suitcase was old and worn, and Manny Ramirez brought it with him from the minors when the Indians called him up on Sept. 1, 1993. All around him was laughter from the veteran Indians, who made fun of the shy rookie and his ruined suitcase. It seemed cruel at the time -- and it still does -- remembering Ramirez's face.

He looked like a high school kid, trying to be brave, not far from tears. The suitcase was too old to buy. A suitcase like that comes from home.

On Sept. 2, 1993, Ramirez made his big-league debut as the Tribe's designated hitter. He went 0-for-4 against Kevin Tapani and Carl Willis in a 4-3 victory over the Twins. Willis is now the Indians pitching coach.

Why the harsh treatment on the day of his debut?

Maybe some of the veterans were afraid. They'd heard about Ramirez all season. When he finally arrived, he did so as Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year after hitting a combined .333 (163-for-489) with 31 homers and 115 RBI at Class AA Akron and Class AAA Charlotte.

They knew he'd come to take somebody's job.

The Indians roster was filled with Latin American players. Many of them had left home with the same kind of suitcase. It's doubtful any of them were ever welcomed to the big leagues like that, even if Ramirez did get a new suitcase out of the deal.

I know I never saw it happen to another Indians rookie.

The next day, the Indians opened a three-game series against the Yankees in the Bronx, not far from where Ramirez grew up in Washington Heights. A bobbing mass of people in the lower left field grandstand at Yankee Stadium came to greet one of their own. They never stopped gyrating or making noise. They carried signs and chanted as if they were at a soccer game
Ramirez did not disappoint them.

In his first at-bat, Ramirez hit a ground-rule double to left field off Melido Perez for his first big-league hit. In the sixth, he hit his first big-league homer, a two-run drive to right to knock Perez out of the game. In the eighth, he homered again, this time to left field off Paul Gibson.

Ramirez went 3-for-4 with two homers and three RBI in his second game. A career-long affinity for hitting the Yankees, especially at Yankee Stadium, was established.

Ramirez is a lifetime .315 (216-for-686) hitter against New York with 51 homers and 151 RBI. He's hitting.311 (112-for-360) with 26 homers and 72 RBI at Yankee Stadium.

I have seen a lot of great right fielders. If I hadn't picked Ramirez, it would have been Vladimir Guerrero of the Angels. Or maybe Tony Gwynn or Andre Dawson if I'd seen them in their prime.

Ramirez's prime sprung right in front of me. It was impossible to ignore.

Defensively, he certainly wasn't the most graceful right fielder, but he went to the gap and to the line much better than people think. He did not have a great arm, a Juan Gonzalez-type arm, but he almost always hit the cutoff man.

His mistakes became local punch lines. Ramirez did not hide from them.

After dropping a ball in right field one night, he pushed a big plastic laundry cart around the clubhouse the next day.

"Hey, Enrique," he shouted to teammate Enrique Wilson, "how do you like my new glove?"
There was the playoff game at Yankee Stadium, when he splattered himself against the outfield fence, back toward home plate, as if he was Spider Man climbing the fence in chase of an apparent home run by Derek Jeter. The ball hit just below Ramirez's right ankle, about three feet above the ground.

Ramirez, of course, never saw it coming.

In a regular-season game at Yankee Stadium, he gave chase into the right-field corner after a fly ball. While all eyes followed him into the corner, the ball fell about 20 feet behind him on the warning track.

All that was forgotten when Ramirez came to the plate. Everyday living might have sped past Ramirez unchecked, but at the plate, with a bat in his hands, everything slowed to his speed. He never seemed to take a bad swing, look off balance, argue with an umpire or toss his helmet in frustration.

Boos or bad calls didn't bother him because he belonged at the plate.

Charlie Manuel, former Indians hitting coach, once found Kevin Seitzer and Julio Franco working with Ramirez on hitting to right field. Manuel shooed them away as if they were naughty children. He didn't want singles hitters messing with one of baseball's smoothest and hard-earned power swings.

Ramirez, who homered in his final at-bat with the Indians in 2000, has spent the past seven years in Boston. To hear those close to the Red Sox talk, he has become strange and isolated - baseball's Howard Hughes. But I think he's still mostly a shy kid with a one-of-a-kind swing.

Ken Griffey Jr. is Paul's choice in center field

Ken Griffey Jr. is Paul's choice in center field
Sunday, June 24, 2007
Paul Hoynes
Plain Dealer Reporter

He had long ago left the Great Northwest when I finally saw an Indians player hit a ball over the head of the best center fielder I've ever seen.

Ken Griffey Jr. was wearing Cincinnati red and white and years of injuries had turned his legs and hamstrings to shredded wheat. I can't remember the player who did it. I just remember that I'd never seen it before.

When Griffey played for the Seattle Mariners, under the concrete roof of the Kingdome, he caught everything. He had great speed and instincts going back on the ball for a 6-3, 228-pound man. He didn't play deep and there wasn't a center-field wall that scared him.

Griffey's left arm was strong and accurate. There were no humps in his throws to the bases, just a long fluid line, like a bullet train headed into Tokyo with the throttle wide open.

I always thought his throws should have come with a train whistle or a contrail. Runners trying to advance on fly balls to center did so at their own peril.

There are those who say the only reason Seattle still has a big-league club is because of Griffey. They made him the No. 1 pick in the country in 1987 out of Cincinnati Moeller High School.

Two years later, Griffey, all of 19, was in the big leagues to stay. When the Mariners made the postseason in 1995 for the first time in franchise history, Griffey was the center of their universe.

He had, and still has, a great swing. It's a lovely, left-handed swing complete with the upward tilt of a true power hitter. The right-field wall at the Kingdome, where Griffey played his best baseball, was 23-feet high and so close you felt like you could touch it from the press box. It was 357 feet from the plate to right center and 316 feet down the line.

The wall was painted pale blue with out-of-town scores displayed on it. Griffey used his lovely swing to hit homer after homer over that wall.

The dome's artificial turf was fast and worn. There always seemed to be a haze in the air and at times ceiling panels fell to the field. Griffey loved the place.

In one four-year stretch from 1996-99, he hit 209 homers. Here's the breakdown - 49 in '96, 56 in '97, 56 in '98 and 48 in '99.

Griffey spoke quietly, took batting practice wearing his cap backward and his spikes untied. He looked impossibly young and upset traditionalists with the ease in which he approached the game.

When the Mariners played the Indians, he seemed to spend more time on their side of the field than his own. He would talk to Albert Belle, Kenny Lofton and other players while they stretched near the batting cage. In one series at Jacobs Field, several hours before game time, Griffey spent a good 45 minutes in the Indians' locker room talking to players.

I've never seen another player do that before or since.

The Mariners moved out of the Kingdome and into Safeco Field on July 15, 1999.

Safeco Field, with its retractable roof and pitcher-friendly dimensions, was former manager Lou Piniella's dream. He had grown weary of the wild 10-7 games inside the Kingdome and longed for a bigger park that would reward pitching and defense as well as power.

It was not Griffey's favorite place. The heavy sea air settled into the park at night and killed his drives to right field.

The new park may have contributed to Griffey wanting out of Seattle. The Mariners' inability to pay him was a factor as well, which played a role in Randy Johnson being traded in 1998 and Alex Rodriguez becoming a free agent in 2000.

The Mariners traded Griffey to Cincinnati after the 1999 season for five players. He was home, back where his father played for the Big Red Machine, but injuries ravaged him during his prime years.

Griffey, 37, finally relented and moved to right field this year. The swing is still there and 600 homers are within reach this season.

If he had stayed healthy, it might be Griffey instead of Barry Bonds getting ready to break Hank Aaron's record this year. If not this year, he would have certainly been a threat to pass both Bonds and Aaron before retiring.

Vizquel has fun playing the game

Vizquel has fun playing the game
Sunday, April 22, 2007

I've tried not to be a homer in pick ing the best players I've seen while writing about the Indians and Major League Baseball since 1983. Two of my first three choices, Eddie Murray and Robbie Alomar, made stops in Cleveland but spent the majority of their careers elsewhere.

When it came to shortstop, however, I plead guilty. I picked Omar Vizquel, who spent 11 years with the Indians.

The shortstop position has been redefined during Vizquel's career. It started with Cal Ripken Jr., long before Vizquel became an Indian in 1994.

Then came three Ripken clones in Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter and Nomar Garciaparra between 1994 and 1997. Like Ripken, they are tall, strong and hit home runs.

Vizquel is short, 5-9 at best, and has never hit more than 14 homers in a season. But I've never enjoyed watching a player more. Game after game, Vizquel did it better, and smoother, than anyone else.

It is interesting to look back on the standard-bearers for the shortstop revolution. Ripken, who retired in 2001, will enter the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in July. Garciaparra, old and battered before his time, is playing first base for the Dodgers. Rodriguez, who started this season with 464 homers - Ripken hit 431 - is still trying to get the hang of third base for the Yankees.

Jeter and Vizquel are the only ones still playing short. If I hadn't picked Vizquel, I would have chosen Jeter. Born into the lap of Yankees luxury as a rookie in 1996, few play harder or better when there's a game to be won.

The thing I like most about Vizquel is that he never looks like he's working during a game. He's serious when he needs to be, but most of the time he's smiling like a kid playing ball in the back yard with his buddies.

One night in Kansas City four or five years ago, a limbo contest was being held in the stands between innings. The scoreboard cameras would pick out a fan, who would then try to bend under a digitally enhanced limbo stick. Then the camera found Vizquel fielding grounders at short. Vizquel, laughing, limboed under the stick as the fans cheered.

It was Vizquel's sense of fun that started his long-standing feud with former teammate Jose Mesa. One spring training, during an intrasquad game, Vizquel homered off Mesa and did a cartwheel across home plate. The fans at Chain of Lakes Park laughed and applauded, not knowing that a slow-burning fuse had been lit inside Mesa.

Former General Manager John Hart knew before anyone else what Vizquel would mean to the Indians teams that dominated the American League Central from 1995 through 2001. When he acquired Vizquel from Seattle after the 1993 season, Hart was so excited he made a special trip to Venezuela just to watch Vizquel play winter ball. It was as if Hart had to see Vizquel with his own eyes to confirm that he'd really been able to get him from Seattle for Felix Fermin and Reggie Jefferson.

Vizquel, who won a Gold Glove in Seattle in 1993, won eight more in Cleveland. After signing a three-year deal with San Francisco because the Indians wouldn't pick up his option, he became the oldest shortstop in history to win a Gold Glove in 2005. He topped himself in 2006 by going gold again.

In Cleveland, Vizquel made catching a baseball look easy.

Sometimes, when he was trying to catch a pop-up and the sun was in his eyes, he'd turn his back to the sun and the ball. With the sun blocked, he would catch the ball as it came over his shoulder.

Yankees scout Gene Michael watched Vizquel do that against the Yankees at Jacobs Field and marveled at his creativity.

The best thing I ever saw Vizquel do was in 1994 after he made three errors in a game. The defensive magician had failed in front of his new fans at Jacobs Field.

Vizquel answered every question from a mob of reporters after the game. Jim Thome, just getting started on being the Indians all-time home run leader, had the locker next to Vizquel's. He watched with his eyes and mouth wide open.

To this day Thome will tell you it's the reason he never ducks a question, good or bad, from the media. Thome figured that if a gold-plated shortstop can do it, so can he.