Nomar : "I Was Definitely Hurt"



Following Boston's abortive attempt to acquire Alex Rodriguez, there's been much speculation concerning the mood of SS Nomar Garciaparra as the season approaches. Nomar's comments yesterday will do little to lower to level of rhetoric. From the Boston Globe's Bob Hohler :

"I was definitely hurt by a lot of it," he said. "I probably felt like anyone else would feel after spending their whole career in one organization and having to find out you've been traded, or you're pretty much gone, over the television."

Asked if the team had explained the situation to his satisfaction, Garciaparra gave every indication that the Sox brass, in his view, came up short.

"Have they done anything?" he responded. "Well, I pretty much got a lot my information, like I said, off the television. That's really what I kind of just base things off of and what you guys had written. I kind of just stopped reading it after a while and left it alone."

Indeed, he said he felt as if the Sox left him in limbo.

"A couple of times there, I didn't know if I was supposed to be renting a place in Tucson or down in Vero Beach or wherever," he said, referring to the sites of the White Sox and Dodgers training camps. "I'm just glad I still have my connections here in Fort Myers to get a place to rent."

Amid the dispute, it was disclosed that Garciaparra rejected a four-year, $60 million offer before last season (he had countered at $68 million) and that the Sox had reduced the offer to $48 million in the run-up to the Rodriguez talks.

Garciaparra said he was stunned by the lower offer, believing the sides planned to negotiate a compromise of their initial proposals. And he was hurt that the team apparently had shifted its focus to Rodriguez without informing him.

"When I heard about it, I was thinking, well, the priorities are obviously not for me," he said. "They're obviously for someone else. That was pretty evident throughout this whole winter."

He said the rift may not be irreparable, though he raised the possibility that he could be traded before the season ends or wind up with another team next year. But he suggested the saga over the winter prepared him for a possible departure.

"Basically, I was gone, so I dealt with that already," Garciaparra said. "As far as I was concerned, I was traded. It was a done deal. I was shipped off to a new team.

"I don't know what the future holds. All I know is day to day. That's all I can go by right now."





(Nomar, cracking up at the hacked MLB.com store page with the Orlando Cabrera jerseys)

Posted: Wed - February 25, 2004 at 07:33 AM      

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