From David Lennon’s blog at Newsday.com (Sunday, July 30)
Funny exhange this morning in the Mets clubhouse. Former GM Steve Phillips, a trade deadline fixture on ESPN in the absence of Peter Gammons, is on the big screen giving his rundown of the Top Five playoff-ready rotations. All of Phillips’ picks are from the American League, a detail that he emphasizes for effect, and that incites Pedro Martinez.
Martinez hops up from his chair and shouts at the giant Phillips face, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ll apologize later.”
But the talking head Phillips isn’t finished. Almost on cue, he switches to Martinez’s performance on Friday — his first start in a month — and then stresses the importance of resting him for October.
“I had a rest!” Martinez shouts. With that, the players stretched out on the clubhouse sofas start laughing, and Jose Valentin, stitting at a laptop watching video, yells over, “Put him in the freezer!”