The Best of Gary Sheffield

by NPCody on Jun 4, 2007 10:31 AM PDT

A buddy just sent this to me and I had to pass it along. Some of these are epic.

THE BEST OF SHEFF

September '92 on his days in Milwaukee: "The Brewers brought out the hate in me. I was a crazy man. . . . I hated everything about the place. If the official scorer gave me an error I didn't think was an error, I'd say, 'OK, here's a real error,' and I'd throw the next ball into the stands on purpose.' "

On his hatred of Milwaukee: "Everything you asked for in Milwaukee you didn't get--Ask for good weather, you don't get it. Ask for a good playing surface, you don't get it. Ask for a first-class organization, you don't get it."

On his having two kids with two women by age 17: "That was part of my plan. I didn't want to be the typical athlete who's single all his career. I wanted the all-American family, and I did it the wrong way."

On carrying a gun (he also took one to school in eighth and ninth grade): "It ain't changed because I got in the league. It just made me get more of them."

Sheff, a born-again Christian, on teammate Shawn Green missing a game with the Dodgers because of Yom Kippur during a crucial pennant stretch: "Religion is an important thing as long as you worship the right God."

July '05 after punching a fan in the right-field stands at Fenway: "What did I do to be a villain?" Sheffield listened patiently as someone recounted the reasoning. "Well, I mean you can't look at it that way. I didn't initiate it. It's a situation where I showed restraint, and I moved on from there."

May '89 on Milwaukee pitchers who won't throw at opposing batters even though opposing pitchers kept throwing at him: "Only two, three pitchers have helped me out. The rest have been girls. They won't throw at anybody if you paid them. I've been thrown at in every park I've played in."

In June 2005 On whether he would participate in next year's World Baseball Classic: "My season is when I get paid. I'm not doing that...I'm not sacrificing my body or taking a chance on an injury for something that's made up. This isn't the Olympics. That's a big difference. This is something you made up."

On the '04 Red Sox: "They're a walking disaster. They act like they're tough, how they care so much about winning, but it's all a front. They're just a bunch of characters."

On his non-reaction to getting intentionally beaned by Boston's Curtis Leskanic in 2004: "I know Leskanic. His brother did my pool."

Explaining that a hitting slump in 2007 was mental: "I could have bad mechanics and get hits. I don't worry about that, because I'm not really a mechanically-sound guy. It's more between my ears."

June '05 after being rumored in a trade to the Mets for Mike Cameron: "It don't make a difference who it is. If I didn't choose to go there, things are gonna have to change about my whole situation, contract, years, everything. Other than that, you might as well not bother trading for me, cause you're gonna have a very unhappy player. You gonna inconvenience me, I'm gonna inconvenience every situation there is. I mean, the only reason I'm playing is 'cause I wanna play for the Yankees."

January '02 to the Associated Press: "Barry told me what I have to do to finish my career as a Hall of Famer. I want to end my career with the Atlanta Braves and be a Hall of Famer with the Atlanta Braves."

On "Game of Shadows," which spells out Bonds' alleged use of steroids: "I don't even know what the book says. I never read it."

From a 2006 interview with Newsday on who on the Yankees would look out for A-Rod now that he (Sheff) was gone: "Nobody. You all got to get ready. You all got to get ready. There's nobody."

In response to the Hartford Courant asking him in 2004 about whether winning an MVP award would mean anything to him: "No."

On his childhood: "I was hyper as a kid. My parents sent me to the hospital to get checked out. I was probably ADD (attention-deficit disorder). Still am."

On life in general: "Most people figured I'd be in jail. I've been proving people wrong my whole life."

This Fan-Post is authored by an independent fan. Tell us what you think and how you feel.

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Comments

great diary

kudos

by Ty Webb on Jun 4, 2007 10:59 AM PDT reply actions

Sheff's a riot

Like Barkley but mean to the bone.

Would hate to get caught on his lawn

by eyespy on Jun 4, 2007 11:22 AM PDT reply actions

Great diary

Gary Sheffield is a borderline Hall of Fame bat, but he's also a caustic jerk with no end of egomania. I have a sneaking suspicion he won't get into Cooperstown for several reasons:

Multiple simultaneous wives, and he's not Mormon, even.
His entanglement with BALCO.
He's played for a lot of teams that haven't gone all the way.
His attitude in Milwaukee.

All that said, Jay Jaffe took the devil's advocate position (in my mind, as Jaffe is an active Yankees fan, and so some partisan blindness may be imputed to him) and ran a very good three part series on Sheff. In my mind, Jaffe didn't place enough weight on Sheff's time in Milwaukee and his public pouting while a Dodger when considering the man as a whole. His bat speaks for itself, of course, and while I maybe overextended myself when I likened him to Hal Chase, he's still a slimy guy, without question.

Ervin Santana To AAA! (But only for road games.)

by scareduck on Jun 4, 2007 1:34 PM PDT reply actions

My series on Shef

Rob, thanks for linking the series, but I do think you're mischaracterizing some of it. I was (and remain) far more of a Dodger fan than a Yankee fan, and I did suffer through Shef's time in LA as much as the next fan, or non-local market fan at least. Going back and evaluating what he said versus what he did (at least on the field) definitely softened my feelings about those days -- he was critical of management over the Dreifort contract and the money the team was tossing around at a time when he was producing at a Piazza-like level and felt he should have been earning more. Plus, we're talking about the Fox-era Dodgers, and who can hold any player's adverse reaction to that ugly regime against them?

More importantly, I tried to examine Shef's time in Milwaukee a bit more closely to look at the context of the infamous "intentional error" quote. In my mind, what it comes down to is this:

He came up to the majors at 19, and when he was farmed out for "indifferent fielding," he was in fact injured, diagnosed with a broken foot once he got to Denver.
The Brewers went about moving him to third base in a bullish way that didn't really take into account the possibility that he might not be so happy about it, especially in light of the way they already treated him.
He was subject to non-random drug tests by the team due to his relation to and relationship with Dwight Gooden.
Beyond his own words, the evidence that he intentionally committed errors as described is scant as far as Retrosheet is concerned (see the first of the three articles) and no video has ever materialized of him doing so.

The bottom line is that he was in a situation where he was young and foolish, the object of high expectations but with almost no support from the Brewers to ensure that those expectations were met. He lashed out verbally, but there's little evidence to show that what he said should have been taken literally.

It's an unforgettable quote, but one that needs to be understood in context. That doesn't make Gary Sheffield a saint, obviously, but it shouldn't be judged as harshly as it is.

by jayjaffe on Jun 4, 2007 5:17 PM PDT up reply actions

There is no other player in MLB history

With as many seasons of 30 Win Shares as Sheffield (8) who has not made the Hall of Fame once qualified. To give some perspective, Vladdie's never had that many (though he has 29 basically every year).

Sheffield's an easy first-ballot Hall of Famer, in my view. More deserving than Dave Winfield. His teams win for a reason.

by mattwelch on Jun 4, 2007 11:10 PM PDT reply actions

Flak jackets and helmets

These should be standard issue for 3rd base coaches when Shef is up to bat. The man is a stud and one of a few hitters I will change the channel to watch bat.

by LosAngel on Jun 4, 2007 11:30 PM PDT reply actions