Greetings from Blacksburg, where Hall of Fame pitcher Jim Palmer visited Saturday for Baseball Night in Blacksburg.
Quick note that needs to be written: Palmer wasn't paid a dime to come here. Virginia Tech baseball coach Pete Hughes got him to come and speak through a mutual acquaintance, which speaks both to Hughes' recruiting ability and Palmer's class.
My Sunday column focused on the big news of the day, Alex Rodriguez and (sigh) steroids and baseball. Obviously, we reporters were interested in Palmer's thoughts on the subject. But that wasn't the only topic of discussion. I also asked Palmer, who does color commentary on Orioles broadcasts for MASN, whether he thought the O's were heading in the right direction with the moves they made this offseason.
“I certainly hope so," he said. "As you all know, it’s a very difficult division to be in. Nobody can outspend the Yankees…The Orioles have to try to sign players and develop their young talent. I honestly think that they helped themselves with [Cesar] Izturis at shortstop, because that was one of the weaknesses. [Melvin] Mora was one of the best hitters in baseball the second half of the year, even though I think he’s going to be 37 this year, he had shoulder surgery to take care of what bothered him the first half. [Nick] Markakis is as good a right fielder as you could have, and they just signed him long term. That’s a positive. Catching is going to be somewhat of a dilemma. [Recently jettisoned] Ramon Hernandez, his first year was great and then his second year and third year, he was not the most ambitious guy. And I think people resented that. It’s such an important position. You need to have somebody who understands how important catching is. [Matt] Wieters down the line will probably be the catcher but Gregg Zaun, he was there a long time ago and he’s really matured as a catcher. I think he’ll be able to do that…Is [Aubrey] Huff going to have 32 home runs? He’s certainly capable of doing it. It’s a contract year, so that’s a lot of motivation. Brian Roberts is one of the best leadoff guys in baseball. I think Adam Jones has a chance to be as good as anybody in baseball in center field. He’s still going to have to mature as a hitter, but he’s a great kid. And I think the bullpen’s going to be special, especially if some of the guys come back. The starting pitching, obviously…there’s going to be some holes....Everybody else, at least on paper, is supposedly better than them. But there are a lot of good teams on paper that haven’t done well.”
I also asked him if he thought the economy would create a greater disparity in baseball.
“That’s a good question," he said. "There was a great article on class resentment. When things are going well, people don’t mind that people on Wall Street are making money, the executives at GM or Chrysler or whatever are making money. But when things aren’t going good and you’re losing jobs or whatever, the whole playing field changes. So it’s going to be very interesting in baseball…it’s going to be a difficult sell. I think you have to try to get your fans to relate to your players. While we made nice salaries, I don’t think we made so much that people resented us. Which is too bad.”
(He laughed after he said that last part and pointed out that he was joking.)
I asked Hughes if he had to dust off a steroid speech when news like Saturday's breaks. He said no, that the NCAA does a good job of testing, but they do talk about the issue occasionally.
“It’s out there," Hughes said. "Steroids is no different, especially for kids who are competitively motivated. Someone’s always looking for an edge. And we’ve just got to tell them that’s not where you’re going to get your edge."
Aaron McFarling
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