I always enjoy a good war of words through the media between folks from different organizations...and we now have, as our main event, LSB fave Buddy Bell facing off against the pimp, J.P. Ricciardi:
After the Royals landed free-agent Gil Meche to a five-year, $55 million deal, Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi questioned Meche's competitiveness.
"When a guy talks about coming to our place where he has a chance to win and compete against the Yankees and the Red Sox," Ricciardi told USA Today, "and then he goes to a place like Kansas City, that's an eye-opener."
Royals manager Buddy Bell, among others in Kansas City, took offence.
"(Ricciardi) is an interesting guy for all that he's done in the game," Bell told the Kansas City Star. "He's a little guy with a big mouth and all he does is whine. And you can write that. That's the kind of crap in this game that drives me crazy. He knows nothing about our situation. You've got to be kidding me. Every time I hear this guy talk, all he's doing is whining."
After losing out in the Meche bidding and offering a four-year $40 million deal, Ricciardi said "we may have dodged a bullet with that one."
Oh, snap!!!
That's on the heels of the Dodgers and BoSox getting ready to square off over the J.D. Drew tampering charges:
If the Los Angeles Dodgers want to play rough with the Red Sox and file tampering charges with Major League Baseball regarding the signing of outfielder J.D. Drew, the National League club should expect an immediate flurry of counterpunches.
According to a story in yesterday's New York Times, the Dodgers are so disgruntled about losing Drew to the Sox that they are considering formally taking the issue up with MLB, alleging that general manager Theo Epstein enticed the outfielder into exercising his right to void the final three years (and $33 million) on his contact in November. Drew signed a five-year, $70 million deal with the Red Sox on Tuesday.
Should the Dodgers opt to take action, however, the Sox may respond with as many as three tampering charges against Los Angeles, according to a source close to the situation, including one involving attempts to contact Manny Ramirez. The other two pertain to the Dodgers allegedly contacting two Sox front office employees about potential jobs without seeking permission from the team.
"There's a lot of animosity between the
organizations right now for a lot of reasons, but if (the Dodgers file tampering charges), they better realize that they're coming right back at them," the source said.
There's more to this Boston Herald article, so click on the link to check it out...
This, of course, is on the heels of Reds g.m. Wayne Krivsky saying the Reds are filing a grievance against the Nationals over Jim Bowden's alleged misrepresentation of Gary Majewski's arm problems with the Nats and Reds made that ridiculous trade last summer.
And we also have Pittsburgh and Atlanta pointing fingers at each other over who is to blame over the Adam LaRoche/Mike Gonzalez trade falling apart last week.
Oh, the drama...