Post by MizzouTiger on Dec 7, 2007 14:16:50 GMT -5
www.kansascity.com/sports/royals/story/393534.html
Guillen's first day in KC includes a 15-day suspension
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
Early Thursday afternoon, and Jose Guillen had been in Kansas City for all of about 30 minutes. Exhausted after the flight from Miami, all he wanted was a nap.
He got it, but only for an hour before his phone rang. He answered it and heard from his agent that Major League Baseball had suspended him 15 days for violating its drug policy.
How’s that for a wake-up call?
“It’s all good,” Guillen said late Thursday night. “My lawyers, the union, they’ll handle that real well. It’s going to get better. Nothing’s going to get worse. The only thing that bothers me is a lot of the stuff they were saying is not true. But I let my lawyers handle that.”
If this week’s signing of Guillen — one of baseball’s top free agent hitters — put sugarplum thoughts of middle-of-the-order pop in the Royals’ minds, the suspension was a quick slap back to reality.
It comes after a San Francisco Chronicle report last month that Guillen bought $19,000 worth of steroids and human growth hormone from 2003-05. Guillen is appealing the suspension.
He hit .290 with 23 home runs and 99 RBIs, numbers the Royals haven’t had from one player since Carlos Beltran in 2003.
But to many, the Royals are gambling more than $36 million over three years on Guillen. They are his ninth big league team, and if he finishes the contract in Kansas City, it will be the longest he’s stayed with any of them.
There have been numerous confrontations over the years with managers, and the steroids suspension is just the latest reason some people have their minds made up about Guillen.
Heck, one of them attended a private season-ticket holders event Thursday night, grabbing a microphone and reading a letter general manager Dayton Moore had written about how the Royals would be made up of good guys whom fans could feel good cheering for.
How, the man wondered, could Moore write that and then sign Guillen?
“Everybody I spoke to in baseball said two things about Jose Guillen,” Moore said later in an interview. “They say what a caring person he is; he cares about his teammates and he cares about winning.
“And they also talk about the way he plays. He plays with fire, he plays with energy, he plays with high expectations. You’ve talked to this guy. This guy’s got a warm personality, he’s got a great smile, he’s a charismatic guy. He just loves to play and wants to win.
“That’s the bottom line with him. That’s the focus of Jose Guillen.”
•••
The decision to sign Guillen did not come on a whim. Royals executive Rene Francisco has known Guillen since he was 17. Moore and his assistants talked to plenty of people before acting on Guillen, and most of them sounded like this:
“I loved Jose,” Mariners manager John McLaren says. “He was one of my favorite guys I’ve been around the whole team. He will speak his mind, and I never had a problem with him. I think he’s good not only as a player but good for the young players.”
During the season, McLaren compared the juxtaposition of Guillen’s fire and soft heart to Lou Piniella, and all indications are that he was liked and respected in Seattle.
Guillen concentrated on fitting in the first half of the season, then started to assert himself later. When he called out the organization for a personnel move, he was seen as sticking up for a teammate, not challenging the front office.
He once publicly called out then-A’s manager Ken Macha after being left out of the lineup, but the two have a strong enough relationship that Macha reportedly put in a strong word for Guillen when the Mariners called last offseason.
He spent much of last month in his native Dominican Republic, buying food and providing supplies and his own labor to help after Tropical Storm Noel, which left at least 60,000 homeless.
That’s the side of Guillen that is too often overlooked, because of this other side…
In both Anaheim and Washington, he ticked off his pitchers by accusing them of not protecting the hitters. He’s been from Pittsburgh to Tampa Bay to Arizona to Cincinnati to Oakland to Anaheim to Washington to Seattle, and now Kansas City. Some of that is circumstance.
Not all of it, though.
Hal McRae managed Guillen in Tampa and told the Dayton Daily News in 2003: “Guillen was the most difficult human being I ever dealt with.”
Jose Rijo, the former pitcher who is now an executive with the Nationals, is from the same Dominican Republic town as Guillen — San Cristobal — and once said this: “He’s in my top five abilitywise. But then again, he’s not in the top 1,000 on my list of behavior.”
Guillen was suspended 10 days in 2001 for using a corked bat during a minor-league rehab, blew up on the trainers in Oakland when they didn’t want him to play, and once put holes in a wall by throwing bats after he was taken out of the lineup in Cincinnati.
Aside from the alleged steroids purchases, virtually every controversy Guillen has been involved in has centered around playing time, and he doesn’t just complain for it — in 2006, he played half the season with a torn ligament in his elbow.
Guillen’s most (in)famous incident came in 2004, when he reacted to being lifted for a pinch hitter by manager Mike Scioscia.
The Los Angeles Times described the scene like this: “(Guillen) threw his arms into the air at first base, walked slowly off the field, tossed his helmet toward the side of the dugout Scioscia was standing in, and walked to the opposite side of the dugout before entering. He then fired his glove against the dugout wall.”
Guillen was second to Vladimir Guerrero on the team in home runs (27) and RBIs (104), so it says something that the Angels suspended him for the last two weeks and the playoffs.
If you believe the people who know him well, this is where Guillen changed the most. His career was threatened. With a few minor exceptions, he has been a different guy since.
“I’m not 19 anymore,” Guillen says. “I’m 31 years old. You come into the league, you do stuff, I just look back, ‘Why did I do this?’ You think you can do whatever you want and you think you’re the man, and you’re not.”
•••
It’s two hours before Jose Guillen will surprise a few hundred season ticket holders at a private event downtown. Almost nobody knows he’s here yet, but Dayton Moore just got done talking with Guillen in a private room.
Moore swings open a giant metal door, an obvious jump in his step. He sees someone he knows and gives a light jab in the stomach.
“You,” Moore says, “are gonna love this guy.”
Guillen and Moore both used the same word when asked the most important thing he would bring:
Energy.
Moore shifts his weight, moves his hands and his words come faster as he talks of how “it’s an event” when Guillen is in the batter’s box. He hopes Guillen’s fire spreads on a club that finished next to last in runs in the American League last year.
Guillen’s mother lives in New York and was pushing him hard to sign with the Mets. Guillen was a little suspicious of playing in front of too much family — the distractions — but more than that, he likes the idea of being The Man in the Royals’ lineup, a middle-of-the-order run-producer.
The suspension is an unavoidable reminder of a past that Guillen is trying to overcome, trying to make people forget. Once the appeal is ruled upon, either way, Guillen hopes he can talk more about the good, less about the bad.
Besides, most of his problems have been because he’s wanted to be in the lineup, right? The Royals figure to want him in the lineup even more. Problem solved, right?
Both sides hope so.
“I’ve done some stupid stuff, not what I’m supposed to be doing,” Guillen says. “Baseball, you know how it is, you do some stuff in the past, it’s hard to take that out of the way, people will still bring that up.
“Hopefully people will forget about my past and just concentrate on my future, and what I’ve been doing the past few years.”
Guillen's first day in KC includes a 15-day suspension
By SAM MELLINGER
The Kansas City Star
Early Thursday afternoon, and Jose Guillen had been in Kansas City for all of about 30 minutes. Exhausted after the flight from Miami, all he wanted was a nap.
He got it, but only for an hour before his phone rang. He answered it and heard from his agent that Major League Baseball had suspended him 15 days for violating its drug policy.
How’s that for a wake-up call?
“It’s all good,” Guillen said late Thursday night. “My lawyers, the union, they’ll handle that real well. It’s going to get better. Nothing’s going to get worse. The only thing that bothers me is a lot of the stuff they were saying is not true. But I let my lawyers handle that.”
If this week’s signing of Guillen — one of baseball’s top free agent hitters — put sugarplum thoughts of middle-of-the-order pop in the Royals’ minds, the suspension was a quick slap back to reality.
It comes after a San Francisco Chronicle report last month that Guillen bought $19,000 worth of steroids and human growth hormone from 2003-05. Guillen is appealing the suspension.
He hit .290 with 23 home runs and 99 RBIs, numbers the Royals haven’t had from one player since Carlos Beltran in 2003.
But to many, the Royals are gambling more than $36 million over three years on Guillen. They are his ninth big league team, and if he finishes the contract in Kansas City, it will be the longest he’s stayed with any of them.
There have been numerous confrontations over the years with managers, and the steroids suspension is just the latest reason some people have their minds made up about Guillen.
Heck, one of them attended a private season-ticket holders event Thursday night, grabbing a microphone and reading a letter general manager Dayton Moore had written about how the Royals would be made up of good guys whom fans could feel good cheering for.
How, the man wondered, could Moore write that and then sign Guillen?
“Everybody I spoke to in baseball said two things about Jose Guillen,” Moore said later in an interview. “They say what a caring person he is; he cares about his teammates and he cares about winning.
“And they also talk about the way he plays. He plays with fire, he plays with energy, he plays with high expectations. You’ve talked to this guy. This guy’s got a warm personality, he’s got a great smile, he’s a charismatic guy. He just loves to play and wants to win.
“That’s the bottom line with him. That’s the focus of Jose Guillen.”
•••
The decision to sign Guillen did not come on a whim. Royals executive Rene Francisco has known Guillen since he was 17. Moore and his assistants talked to plenty of people before acting on Guillen, and most of them sounded like this:
“I loved Jose,” Mariners manager John McLaren says. “He was one of my favorite guys I’ve been around the whole team. He will speak his mind, and I never had a problem with him. I think he’s good not only as a player but good for the young players.”
During the season, McLaren compared the juxtaposition of Guillen’s fire and soft heart to Lou Piniella, and all indications are that he was liked and respected in Seattle.
Guillen concentrated on fitting in the first half of the season, then started to assert himself later. When he called out the organization for a personnel move, he was seen as sticking up for a teammate, not challenging the front office.
He once publicly called out then-A’s manager Ken Macha after being left out of the lineup, but the two have a strong enough relationship that Macha reportedly put in a strong word for Guillen when the Mariners called last offseason.
He spent much of last month in his native Dominican Republic, buying food and providing supplies and his own labor to help after Tropical Storm Noel, which left at least 60,000 homeless.
That’s the side of Guillen that is too often overlooked, because of this other side…
In both Anaheim and Washington, he ticked off his pitchers by accusing them of not protecting the hitters. He’s been from Pittsburgh to Tampa Bay to Arizona to Cincinnati to Oakland to Anaheim to Washington to Seattle, and now Kansas City. Some of that is circumstance.
Not all of it, though.
Hal McRae managed Guillen in Tampa and told the Dayton Daily News in 2003: “Guillen was the most difficult human being I ever dealt with.”
Jose Rijo, the former pitcher who is now an executive with the Nationals, is from the same Dominican Republic town as Guillen — San Cristobal — and once said this: “He’s in my top five abilitywise. But then again, he’s not in the top 1,000 on my list of behavior.”
Guillen was suspended 10 days in 2001 for using a corked bat during a minor-league rehab, blew up on the trainers in Oakland when they didn’t want him to play, and once put holes in a wall by throwing bats after he was taken out of the lineup in Cincinnati.
Aside from the alleged steroids purchases, virtually every controversy Guillen has been involved in has centered around playing time, and he doesn’t just complain for it — in 2006, he played half the season with a torn ligament in his elbow.
Guillen’s most (in)famous incident came in 2004, when he reacted to being lifted for a pinch hitter by manager Mike Scioscia.
The Los Angeles Times described the scene like this: “(Guillen) threw his arms into the air at first base, walked slowly off the field, tossed his helmet toward the side of the dugout Scioscia was standing in, and walked to the opposite side of the dugout before entering. He then fired his glove against the dugout wall.”
Guillen was second to Vladimir Guerrero on the team in home runs (27) and RBIs (104), so it says something that the Angels suspended him for the last two weeks and the playoffs.
If you believe the people who know him well, this is where Guillen changed the most. His career was threatened. With a few minor exceptions, he has been a different guy since.
“I’m not 19 anymore,” Guillen says. “I’m 31 years old. You come into the league, you do stuff, I just look back, ‘Why did I do this?’ You think you can do whatever you want and you think you’re the man, and you’re not.”
•••
It’s two hours before Jose Guillen will surprise a few hundred season ticket holders at a private event downtown. Almost nobody knows he’s here yet, but Dayton Moore just got done talking with Guillen in a private room.
Moore swings open a giant metal door, an obvious jump in his step. He sees someone he knows and gives a light jab in the stomach.
“You,” Moore says, “are gonna love this guy.”
Guillen and Moore both used the same word when asked the most important thing he would bring:
Energy.
Moore shifts his weight, moves his hands and his words come faster as he talks of how “it’s an event” when Guillen is in the batter’s box. He hopes Guillen’s fire spreads on a club that finished next to last in runs in the American League last year.
Guillen’s mother lives in New York and was pushing him hard to sign with the Mets. Guillen was a little suspicious of playing in front of too much family — the distractions — but more than that, he likes the idea of being The Man in the Royals’ lineup, a middle-of-the-order run-producer.
The suspension is an unavoidable reminder of a past that Guillen is trying to overcome, trying to make people forget. Once the appeal is ruled upon, either way, Guillen hopes he can talk more about the good, less about the bad.
Besides, most of his problems have been because he’s wanted to be in the lineup, right? The Royals figure to want him in the lineup even more. Problem solved, right?
Both sides hope so.
“I’ve done some stupid stuff, not what I’m supposed to be doing,” Guillen says. “Baseball, you know how it is, you do some stuff in the past, it’s hard to take that out of the way, people will still bring that up.
“Hopefully people will forget about my past and just concentrate on my future, and what I’ve been doing the past few years.”