This was one of those moments in
the team history that wasn’t great, but an important moment none the less.
First a little background. David Wells, unhappy about being a member of the
Blue Jays, wanted to be traded and on January 14, 2001, he was sent to the
Chicago White Sox along with pitcher Mike DeWitt, for outfielder Brian Simmons,
and pitchers Kevin Beirne, Mike Williams, and Mike Sirotka.
From the outset, it appeared to
be a reasonable trade for the Jays. Despite losing Wells, a 20-game winner,
Sirotka had won 15 with the White Sox in 2000 and was deemed a suitable
replacement. However, the left-hander had a badly damaged shoulder on his
pitching arm that the White Sox didn’t disclose. Chicago obviously was trying
to dump Sirotka and didn’t inform Toronto about his injury. The Blue Jays--once they discovered the problem--appealed to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, asking that he overturn the trade, due
to Chicago passing on “damaged goods” to the Blue Jays.
On March 7th, Selig
refused to reverse the trade, stating that the individual club must take
responsibility for making sure they had all the information about the players
before the trade is made. It was—and still is—obvious that he made this
decision based on the fact that it was the Jays, not a high-profile team as far
as MLB was concerned. If it had been the Yankees making the trade with the
White Sox, it is very likely that he would have intervened due to the
underhanded dealing of Chicago.
Follow us on Twitter at @topofthethird
No comments:
Post a Comment