Matt Holliday and the Yankees
Posted By Jeff Fletcher on April 24, 2009 8:46 am
Perhaps you noticed what Matt Holliday said this week in New York about potentially playing for the Yankees.
“I think a little bit, as a human being, you can’t help but to think that if the Yankees are interested I would definitely consider it. I wouldn’t be looking around if I were under contract for four years, but I think I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be interested, especially with the Yankees being such a storied franchise.”
Whenever any big-time player is approaching free agency, it’s almost standard-operating procedure for reporters in other cities to ask him when he comes to town: “How would you like to play for the (fill in team here)?”
There are pretty much three ways a player can answer this question…
- I’m not thinking about that right now. I’m wearing this uniform and I’m worried about this team.
- Sure, I like this team, this city, blah blah.
- No way. I’d never play here.
The only one you will almost never hear is No. 3, which is why that’s the only one that’s really newsworthy to me. The first two are pretty standard canned answers. In the case of the Yankees, No. 2 is obvious. Most players like winning, making a lot of money and playing in front of sellouts, so most players are going to think it would be nice to one day play for the Yankees. Holliday actually suggests that he wouldn’t be a “human being” if he didn’t want to play for the Yankees.
So this little Holliday note tells us … nothing. (Not that I blame the NY Post reporter for writing it.)
While I’ve got you here, A’s fans, I wanted to alert you to something that is coming up next week. Billy Beane has agreed to do a live chat on FanHouse. We’ll be setting up the exact time and date early next week, so keep checking back here to see when it’s going to be. I know I haven’t written as much about the A’s lately as you guys would like, so hopefully this starts to make up for that.
Looking forward to the chat with Beane (as long as my work doesn’t conflict).
isn’t it pretty common for players in their walk years to be asked if they’d consider playing for whatever team they happen to be visiting? So I think Holliday’s answer was pretty standard.
About the human being comment?
(quote) “I think a little bit, as a human being, you can’t help but to think that if the Yankees are interested I would definitely consider it,” Holliday said, as reported on an NYPost.com blog. “I wouldn’t be looking around if I were under contract for four years, but I think I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be interested, especially with the Yankees being such a storied franchise.”
That just seems pretty standard as well.
Holliday didn’t exactly wow the Yankees with his performance the 2 games they were there. He better start jacking them out of the park if he wants a huge deal next year.