Tag: baseball

Gamesmanship, Jorge Posada

Posada Enrolled in Classes at Derek Jeter Acting Academy

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Maybe he was just trying to take some heat off his captain. More likely, this kind of thing happens more often than we think, but we’re paying attention now.

Either way, Jorge Posada took first base last night after not being hit by a pitch.

Sound familiar?

Of course, the sum of Posada’s histrionics involved taking off his shin guard and offering a slight grimace, not hopping around and wincing to the point that medical intervention was necessary. (Watch it here.)

It was an 0-2 pitch from Tampa Bay’s James Shields that skipped on the ground in front of Posada’s feet. He hopped back, never indicating that the pitch did anything but hit him. The relative lack of outcry compared to the recent Derek Jeter incident could have also had to do with the fact that there were already two outs, Posada never scored, and the Yankees won handily anyway, 8-3.

Still, it’s a reminder to all those who bandied about the phrase “Derek Cheater” this week that this is something heady ballplayers do.

– Jason

5
Rookie Hazing, Will Rhymes

Rhymes’ Homer Earns Cold Shoulder

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Reader Greg points out in response to the earlier post about Chris Carter, that Will Rhymes hit his first big league home run last night for the Tigers.

That it had to be determined by review was interesting; even better was the time for planning the delay allowed players on the Tigers bench. TV cameras captured it perfectly: Rhymes enters a stone-silent dugout, and begins walking by his teammates, slightly stunned.

You’ll rarely see a more genuine baseball moment, however, than the Tigers simultaneously jumping up and mobbing their young teammate. (Watch it here.)

Baseball customs—like any traditions—are meant to be passed on, and in that instant, the Tigers passed along a great one.

– Jason

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Chris Carter, Rex Hudler, Rookie Hazing, Todd Greene

Rookie’s First Hit was Inevitable; So was his Treatment in the Dugout

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Rookie hazing happens. It’s a regular part of the rhythm of a baseball season, with first-year players doing everything from menial clubhouse chores to dressing in drag on late-season road trips.

There’s one bit of rookie hazing, however, that has never been met with as much joy as it was yesterday in Oakland.

In the seventh inning of last night’s game against the White Sox, A’s rookie Chris Carter got his first hit—after a nearly record-setting 12 games and 33 at-bats. (Watch it here.)

It was the longest such hitless streak to begin a career in Oakland history, and the longest by any non-pitcher since Vic Harris set the all-time record by going 35 at-bats without a hit in 1972.

Carter was immediately removed for pinch-runner Gabe Gross, and so was able to quickly see what his teammates had in store. While Carter’s hitless streak was atypical, the reaction in the dugout was not.

While bench coach Tye Waller tucked away the actual game ball, other A’s took markers to a dummy ball that was presented to the rookie as the real thing. Though there’s been no mention of what was actually written, we can turn to examples of dummy balls from the past for clues:

  • The ball given to Rick Cerone after his first hit in 1975 read, “8-22-75, Kansas City, First ——- major league hit.”
  • Bob Brenly’s first hit—not as a rookie, but as a new member of the American League, with the Blue Jays in 1989—featured a ball marked by John Candelaria with inscriptions that included, “Here’s your first AL hit,” and “What a horseshit league.”
  • Phil Nevin was somewhat gentler with Frank Catalanotto, refraining from cuss words but going out of his way to misidentify the pitcher and spell the rookie’s name wrong, among other things.

Eventually, the A’s didn’t even give Carter the chance to enjoy his fake ball, seizing it from him and tossing it into the crowd. Soon enough, of course, the actual ball was presented to him in good condition.

“I feel like I’m part of the team now,” said Carter afterward.

Perhaps the best story about helping a rookie a commemorate a moment comes courtesy of Rex Hudler:

I didn’t like rookies getting on the airplane before I did. They had to carry a sack of beer onto the plane, and make sure all the vets had beer or water or whatever we were drinking.

Todd Greene was a real young kid. He had been a No. 1 pick by the Angels, and he got on the plane ahead of me. I didn’t like that, so I pulled him aside. . . . I might have been a little hard in the way I delivered the message. I was better when I got to the Phillies at the end of my career—I knew how to critique players, how to love them. To be a leader, you can’t just hammer them, and I hammered Greenie.

So Greenie hits his first big league homer in Detroit, in dead center field, out past the flagpole, just to the left. There’s a section left of the flagpole in center field, where a lot of people sat with free or low-cost tickets. I took two balls out there at the end of the inning and said, “I got two balls for whoever caught that one, two for one—it’s hit first big-league homer.”

Then I heard the center fielder yelling at me, and I turned around, and the home plate umpire is screaming at me because I’m interrupting the game. Well, I was all the way out there in center field, so I climbed up the center field wall and sat down with the people, and got the ball. The half-inning was a long one, maybe 15 minutes, and I’m out there talking with the people in my uniform, and when it was done I come back in, and everyone was going, “Hud! What the hell were you doing out there?”

I said, “Greenie, I got your ball for you, man!” You’d have thought I gave him a 10-carat diamond. And now, every time I see him, he tells someone, “Hud went out into the center field stands and got my ball for me.” He never forgets. It’s a form of love.

If only Chris Carter can be that lucky.

– Jason

6
Don't Bunt to Break Up a No-Hitter, Felix Hernandez, Julio Borbon

Bunt on King Felix? Preposterous!

Posted on by Jason Turbow

It’s perpetually incredible that major league players can be unclear on the sport’s primary unwritten rules. Some claim complete ignorance, some apathy. Some are simply too green to have heard of them.

Occasionally, however, a player will think he knows the rules when in fact he’s a bit hazier on the topic than he’d care to admit.

Take Felix Hernandez, who, in the middle of a would be no-hitter against Texas on Friday, got up on his high horse about a Code violation that wasn’t really a violation at all.

Julio Borbon bunted.

We hear it frequently: Don’t bunt to break up a no-hitter. Give a pitcher your best effort, because enduring mound performances deserve no less. The concept rose to prominence in 2001, when Padres catcher Ben Davis broke up Curt Schilling’s perfect game with a bunt, and all hell broke loose from the Arizona clubhouse.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Hernandez said in the Everett Herald, about Borbon’s effort. “Sixth inning and a guy is throwing a no-hitter, it’s disrespect.”

It’s a decent rule, especially if it’s late in the game (as was the case with Davis) and the guy bunting doesn’t make ordinary practice of the tactic (as was also the case with Davis).

Borbon, however, has some speed. And the game was still in the middle innings.

More importantly, the Rangers trailed only 2-0 at the time. Borbon’s effort, had it been successful, would have brought the tying run to the plate, something the rest of his teammates had been unable to do to that point in the game.

In this case (and in that of Davis, who also bunted facing a 2-0 deficit), winning trumps all. Do what you must to win the game.

We’ve seen the tactic unsuccessfully attempted at least twice this year, by Gordon Beckham (against Chicago’s Ted Lilly, whose no-no was broken up later in the game) and Evan Longoria (in the middle of Dallas Braden’s perfect game).

The guy who had it absolutely correct: Borbon.

“What was I supposed to do, let him have it his way?” he said in an MLB.com report. “I realize he was throwing a no-hitter, but I wasn’t getting out of my game. If the game was one-sided it might be different, but in a close game like that, it could be a difference-maker.

“I was trying to get it down and get something going. I wasn’t worried about the no-hitter. If we were down six, seven eight runs, I’m going to swing the bat. But down 2-0 in the sixth inning, I don’t think I was being disrespectful to him or the game or to anybody. I was trying to do something for the team.”

Just like he was supposed to.

– Jason

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Mark Buehrle, Ozzie Guillen, Retaliation, The Baseball Codes

Buehrle Drills Cuddyer (Yawn), then Almost Admits Intent (Really?)

Posted on by Jason Turbow

That Mark Buehrle intentionally drilled Michael Cuddyer yesterday is hardly unusual. White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko had been hit on the upper lip by Carl Pavano in the first, and Cuddyer was Minnesota’s leadoff hitter in the second.

Umpire Jerry Crawford delayed his warnings, Buehrle hit Cuddyer in the shoulder blade, and, as is proper when this sort of thing happens, everybody moved on. (Watch it here.)

Until after the game, anyway, when Buehrle actually talked about his motivation.

“When I’m told to do something I try to go out there and do it to the best of my ability,” he told reporters. “Obviously you got to protect your guys.”

Rare is the instance when a pitcher admits to something like this, even in as roundabout a way as Buehrle. It’s tantamount to public confession, and, although Buehrle’s statement is probably too vague to fall into this category, frequently leads to discipline from the league.

Of course, Buehrle knows a thing or two about following Ozzie Guillen’s orders when it comes to things like this. I’ve excerpted this section before, but it bears repeating. From The Baseball Codes:

In 2006, Ozzie Guillen quickly identified Texas’s Hank Blalock as a target for retaliation after Rangers pitcher Vicente Padilla twice hit Chicago catcher A. J. Pierzynski during a game. That was the plan, anyway. Filling the space between conception and exe¬cution, however, was Guillen’s choice of executioner: rookie Sean Tracey.

The right-hander had appeared in all of two big-league games to that point and was understandably nervous. Even under optimal circumstances he didn’t have terrific control, having led the Carolina League in wild pitches two years earlier, while hitting twenty-three batters. When Tracey was suddenly inserted into a game at Arlington Stadium with orders to drill the twentieth major-league hitter he’d ever faced, it was hardly because he was the best man for the job. To Guillen, Tracey was simply an expendable commodity, a reliever whose potential ejection wouldn’t much hurt the team, especially trailing 5–0, as the Sox were at the time. . . .

When the right-hander’s first pitch to Blalock ran high and tight but missed the mark, Tracey did what he’d been taught in the minors, sending his next pitch to the outside corner in order to avoid suspicion. Blalock tipped it foul. When Tracey’s third effort was also fouled back, for strike two, the pitcher altered his strategy and decided to go after the out, not the batter.

According to his manager, it was the wrong decision. After Blalock grounded out on the fifth pitch of the at-bat, Guillen stormed to the mound and angrily yanked Tracey from the game. He didn’t let up after they returned to the dugout, berating the twenty-five-year-old in front of both his teammates and a television audience. With nowhere to hide, Tracey sat on the bench and pulled his jersey up over his head, doing his best to disappear in plain sight. Two days later, without making another appearance, he was returned to the minor leagues, and during the off¬season was released. . . .

Ultimately, Tracey shouldered the responsibility for his actions, saying he “learned from it,” but the lesson was lost on his more tenured teammate, Jon Garland, a seven-year veteran en route to his second consecutive eighteen-win season. Before Padilla’s next start against the White Sox, Guillen launched a pre-emptive verbal sortie, positing to members of the media that if the Rangers right-hander hit any Chicago player, retribution would be fast and decisive. His exact words: “If Padilla hits somebody, believe me, we’re going to do something about it. That’s a guarantee. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but something’s going to happen. Make sure [the Rangers] know it, too.” Padilla did, in fact, hit Chicago shortstop Alex Cintron in the third inning, at which point it didn’t take much predictive power to see that a member of the Texas lineup would soon be going down. The smart money was on the following inning’s leadoff hitter, second baseman Ian Kinsler.

The smart money was correct, but the payoff left something to be desired. Garland’s first pitch sailed behind Kinsler, a mark clearly missed. Plate umpire Randy Marsh, well versed in the history between the clubs, opted against issuing a warning, effectively granting Garland a second chance. The pitcher didn’t exactly seize the opportunity, putting his next pitch in nearly the same place as the first. At this point, Marsh had no choice—warnings were issued and hostilities were, willingly or not, ceased. Guillen rushed to the mound for a vigorous discussion about the merits of teammate protection. Kinsler ultimately walked, and after the inning Guillen reprised his dugout undressing of Sean Tracey, spewing invective while Garland listened and the White Sox batted.

Buehrle was with the White Sox at the time, and is all too aware of the repercussions that come with failing to follow his skipper’s orders. (Not that he wouldn’t have done it on his own, anyway.)

He still has to work on keeping these things to himself, but at least Guillen— the league’s poster child for saying far more than he should—has little to hold over him in this regard.

– Jason

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Derek Jeter, Gamesmanship

Jeter Just Doing What Ballplayers Do

Posted on by Jason Turbow

The sports world is absolutely fascinated with Derek Jeter right now, the golden-boy Yankees captain-cum-cheater who acted gravely wounded by a ball that didn’t hit him during a game last night against Tampa Bay. (Watch it here, complete with commentary from each team’s broadcast crew.)

I don’t get the criticism. This is what ballplayers do.

Sure, they’re not often caught en flagrante to the degree that Jeter was, but at heart, they’re all the same in this regard. You’d be hard-pressed to find a single example in the history of the game in which a player willfully informed an umpire that a call had been incorrect in favor of the opposition. It doesn’t happen on balls or strikes or plays at the bases. It doesn’t happen on difficult fair-foul calls.

And it certainly doesn’t happen on hit-by-pitches.

Sure, Jeter went overboard with his Shakespearian dramatics. If you want to make a distinction between benefitting from an umpire’s bad call and influencing an umpire into making a bad call, that’s fair. But the underlying tenets are the same: in baseball, every advantage counts; you get ’em where you can.

“He told me to go to first base. I’m not going to tell him I’m not going to first, you know,” said Jeter, afterward. “It’s part of the game. My job is to get on base. Fortunately for us it paid off at the time, but I’m sure it would have been a bigger story if we would have won that game.”

Nobody ever called out an outfielder for acting as if he caught a ball he actually trapped.

“Play it off—that’s not cheating if the umpire lets you get away with it,” said longtime outfielder Von Joshua. “Any means you can to win a baseball game. . . . Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t. That’s just part of the game.”

Even Rays manager Joe Maddon was impressed by Jeter’s effort. “I thought Derek did a great job, and I applaud it,” he said in an MLB.com report, “because I wish our guys would do the same thing.”

Heck, is it really so different than A.J. Pierzynski sticking his elbow into the path of a pitched ball in order to get on base? Neither are admirable, but both are accepted. (Of course, when Pierzynski did it with the bases loaded and a 9-2, eighth-inning lead in 2004, he insured himself a future drilling.)

HardballTalk points out similar displays from Yunel Escobar and Pierzynski, again.  It’s pure gamesmanship.

Jeter even has precedent on his own team. In a 1928 game between the Yankees and Browns, with two outs and Lou Gehrig the baserunner at first, second-base umpire George Hildenbrand turned to watch the play on the lead runner when Bob Meusel hit a ground ball to shortstop Red Kress.

Except that Kress threw to first, and Hildenbrand was caught with his back to the play.

Meusel had been thrown out cleanly, but Hildenbrand hadn’t seen it. Instead, he appealed to Meusel’s honesty.

“Everybody knows you’re out, Bob. Everybody saw it . . .” he said, according to the Baseball Hall of Shame, Vol. IV. “Be a sport and call yourself out.”

Meusel’s response: “George, you’ve been getting nine thousand bucks a year for a long time as an umpire. Now’s a good time to start earning it.”

Hildenbrand had no choice. The runner was safe, and Browns pitcher Al Crowder had to seek his fourth out of the inning.

So wnough with the calls of “Derek Cheater.” The guy was just doing what big leaguers do.

Update (9-22-10): Jorge Posada did kinda sorta the same thing.

– Jason

17
Ian Kinsler, Returning to the Field

Kinsler Came Back, and it Cost Him

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Ian Kinsler just had to be with his teammates. The commissioner’s office disagrees.

In the 10th inning of Friday’s Rangers-Yankees game, Kinsler was ejected by plate umpire Dale Scott for arguing balls and strikes.

Three frames later, Nelson Cruz’s leadoff homer won it for Texas, a 6-5.

Kinsler, who was watching the game in a nearby video room, joined the dancing scrum of Rangers on the field. This violated Rule 4.07, which barred him from the field during the game (he rushed the plate as Cruz was circling the bases), and even prohibited him from staying on the bench.

Bobby Valentine returns to the dugout.

Baseball has dealt with similar rules violations before, notably Mets manager Bobby Valentine returning to the bench after being ejected wearing a fake mustache. (He was fined $5,000 and received a two-game suspension for his troubles. Watch the video here.)

Usually, however, ineligible players return not because they’ve been ejected, but because they’re on the disabled list, and not to celebrate, as did Kinsler, but to help protect their teammates during the course of a fight.

In 1996, Montreal’s David Segui did that very thing—dressing and joining a brawl against the Astros, and drawing a rebuke for his actions from MLB.

More famously, Atlanta’s Bob Horner, wearing a cast on his hand and in the broadcast booth for a 1984 game against the Padres, raced to the clubhouse when trouble started brewing, changed into his uniform and rushed the field to help protect his teammates. (During that game, Horner’s teammates, Gerald Perry, Steve Bedrosian and Rick Mahler, all of whom had been previously ejected, returned to the field for one of the game’s later fights.)

In these situations, the rule makes some sense. The number of active players on competing rosters is always even (save for the occasional discrepancy with September call-ups), and additional veterans joining a fray can skew things.

Kinsler, however, saw little harm in his actions.

“I think it’s a little unreasonable,” he said in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “It’s not too much common sense. They have the rule in place. They have rules for a reason I guess. I don’t know what the reason is, but they obviously put them in place.”

Update: MLB just rescinded the suspension, admitting, in the words of Aaron Gleeman, “Whoops, nevermind.”

– Jason

2
Jordan Smith, Rookie Etiquette

How to Make an Inauspicious Outing Even Worse, No. 762

Posted on by Jason Turbow

By most measures, Jordan Smith has had a fine rookie season for the Cincinnati Reds. He’s compiled a 3.32 ERA in 37.1 innings out of the bullpen, with 22 strikeouts against only nine walks. He’s even racked up a save.

On Monday, however, he learned a valuable lesson in rookie comportment.

In what was by far his worst appearance as a big leaguer—and probably his worst appearance ever—Smith threw nine pitches to two batters, only one of which was a strike. After walking the second man, he was removed by manager Dusty Baker.

Which is pretty much where things fell apart. On his way off the field, Smith decided to have a chat about the strike zone with plate ump John Hirschbeck.

At this point he would have been well served to observe the first rule of rookiedom (generally more valid in years past than today, but still rock-solid when it comes to umpires): Don’t speak unless spoken to.

Words led to shouting; shouting led to ejection. (Watch it here.)

With his display of ill temper, Smith undoubtedly made it more difficult for himself the next time he sees Hirschbeck. Much like veteran players, many umps like to test rookies, just a little, to see what they’re made of.

“The longer you play, the more rope you get,” said Andy Van Slyke, describing the phenomenon.

Whether Hirschbeck had been intentionally squeezing Smith is unclear, but there’s certainly precedent to fall back on.

Take Wade Miller. In the pitcher’s major league debut for Houston in 1999, a start against Arizona, umpire Rich Rieker was being extremely judicious with his strike calls.

After one pitch that split the plate was called a ball, Miller gave the ump a protracted glare. That was all his catcher, Randy Knorr, needed to see. He quickly trotted out for a mound visit.

“I said, ‘Wade, man, just get through today. If you get through today, you’ll be fine. Just don’t show up the umpire. He’s testing you. I’m trying to work him back there, don’t be snapping the ball on him or anything like that.’ ”

Miller ended up allowing seven runs over three innings, but ultimately passed the test. The final batter he faced, Arizona pitcher Brian Anderson, was called out on strikes.

“As he walked off the field,” said Knorr, “I think the umpire said, ‘Good job, Wade.’ ”

– Jason

10
Keeping Teammates Honest

Pie, Chewed Out, Improves Status to Cherry

Posted on by Jason Turbow

Sometimes, it takes pointed criticism to spur necessary action. It’s one thing for a player to be berated by his manager over things such as lackadaisical play or a standoffish attitude, but it can truly sting to hear it from teammates, an indicator that his act has worn thin even within his peer group.

This was the case when Baltimore’s Luke Scott called out teammate Felix Pie early last season, the result of a nearly complete alienation of his teammates by Pie. Scott, reported the Baltimore Sun, “chastised (Pie’s) work ethic, assailed his character, questioned his discipline and labeled him a bad teammate.”

The meeting took place at the team’s indoor batting cage, and was necessary, according to Scott, because although Pie “was just this big ball of talent,” “there was no character, no discipline, no hard work, no dedication. There was laziness and an attitude that somebody owes him something.”

Pie began 2009 as Baltimore’s primary left fielder, but a .157 batting average in April, combined with inattentive mistakes in the field and on the basepaths, altered things in a hurry. Pie’s attitude was hindering his personal productivity, and it was costing his team chances at victory in multiple ways.

This is where the unwritten rules regarding team leadership come into play. “Challenge” meetings such as this, in which one or more players air out grievances about another, happen far more frequently than is reported (partly because the press doesn’t hear about most of them), and serve as one of the primary methods for quickly improving the tenor of a clubhouse.

In 1990, for example, a firestorm ripped through the roster of the San Diego Padres, when third baseman Mike Pagliarulo told a reporter for the New York Daily News that an unnamed teammate cared far more about his stats than team victories. “He doesn’t give a damn about this team,” he said, “and that’s weak.”

Although Pagliarulo later denied it, widespread speculation fingered Tony Gwynn as his target, and a clubhouse meeting was quickly called, in which Jack Clark and Gary Templeton joined in on ripping Gwynn (as well as pitcher Eric Show).

“Tempy said there were some things in the paper that he didn’t like, and he wanted to know where I was coming from,” said Gwynn in Sports Illustrated. “We started yelling back and forth. So Jack is sitting there with a Coke in his hands. He slams it across the room, it breaks open and shoots all over the place, and he says, ‘Hey, everyone in here knows why we’re having this meeting — because we got some selfish — — in this room, and they’re Eric Show and Tony Gwynn.’ Eric was shocked. I was shocked. . . .

“After that meeting I was lost. I spent many nights asking myself, ‘Is it me?’ In other people’s minds, maybe they were right in thinking some things I did were selfish. But face it, this is a selfish game. You get up to the plate, there’s no one to help you but yourself.”

Ultimately, said Gwynn, he devoted more effort to becoming a leader, and the team as a whole grew more focused. The Padres, 18-21 before the meeting, won six of their next seven games, and two weeks later were five games over .500.

The lesson being that if it can happen to Tony Gwynn, it can happen to anyone. And Felix Pie is no Tony Gwynn.

Scott concluded his 2009 intervention with a question, asking Pie if he really even wanted to be in the big leagues, and telling him that if he was unwilling to make the effort he should step aside in favor of someone who was.

“The whole time, his head was down,” said Scott. “Finally, he just said, ‘OK, I’ll work.’ ”

The result: Pie raised his 2009 average to .266, and on Aug. 25 of this year was batting .304, before a recent slump dropped it to .278. He’ll probably never be a superstar, but, thanks in part to Scott, at least he has a chance to reach his potential, whatever that may be.

– Jason

5
Johnny Cueto, Juggling the Rotation

Quirk in the Rotation Helps Cueto Avoid Cards

Posted on by Jason Turbow

When Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto went all Jet Li on Jason LaRue’s face on Aug. 10, kicking the St. Louis catcher onto the disabled list during a mid-fight scrum, everybody’s eyes quickly turned toward the teams’ next meeting—which happened over the weekend.

Anticipation can be a wondrous thing.

This particular anticipation, of course, was short-circuited when the Reds rotation shook out (inadvertently or otherwise) so that Cueto was not scheduled to face the Cardinals.

Cueto would have served as the most obvious target in recent memory, and Reds manager Dusty Baker opted to delay the inevitable; because it was the final meeting for the teams this season (barring a potential showdown in the playoffs), any retribution the Cardinals are able to inflict will have to wait for next year.

There had already been talk that the Reds might try to limit the pitcher’s visibility over the course of the weekend, but Cueto took things a step further, leaving the country with team permission to attend the funeral of an uncle in the Dominican Republic.

Since the fight, LaRue’s injuries—reported as concussion syndromes—have knocked him out for the season. Cueto was suspended seven games for his actions, essentially missing one start in the process.

The suspension also Baker the leeway to mix and match where in the rotation he reinserted Cueto (which he did in conjunction with figuring out how to reduce the work on fatigued rookie Mike Leake), the better to have the pitcher avoid St. Louis.

It wouldn’t be the first time such juggling has occurred. After Roger Clemens bounced a fastball off Mike Piazza‘s helmet in 2000, Yankees manager Joe Torre arranged his pitching rotation to ensure that Clemens was his Game 2 starter at Yankee Stadium, despite the fact that he was the Yankees’ best pitcher that year. This made Clemens the only member of the four-man World Series rotation to avoid pitching at Shea (where he would have been an obvious target the moment he stepped to the plate in the non-DH park).

“Did I juggle the rotation to keep him from pitching at Shea? Yeah, I probably did,” said Torre. “I’m not going to deny that. I didn’t need another soap opera.”

– Jason

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