She's a hit in Dodgertown
She was a freshman pitcher who threw a knuckleball and assorted other junk, and a "terrible-hitting" second baseman at Falmouth High in Maine, when Emily Christy, who learned her game at the summer baseball camps Ed Flaherty ran at the University of Southern Maine, decided it might be best to play softball instead.
The end of a budding baseball career? Hardly, although you'd be challenged to draw a straight line to her promotion last week by the Los Angeles Dodgers to general manager of the Vero Beach Dodgers, the team's Class A affiliate in the Florida State League.
Check out the resume. History major at Princeton, class of 1998. Dabbled in law, working as a paralegal for the district attorney in New York City and a private law firm. Went back to school at Georgetown to take some classes she needed for med school. Opted instead for a job in an MIT lab doing cancer genetics research, while helping to run the New England Women's Baseball League, in which she also played.
How do you go from MIT to Dodgertown?
"I got lucky," she said by phone from Vero Beach.
It was more than that, of course. Christy saw an ad for an internship on a website, and because somebody deduced she was smart, ambitious, and passionate about the game, she was accepted into the program and assigned to the team in Vero Beach. She expected she'd be asked to do everything -- game-day operations, selling advertising, taking ticket orders -- but never imagined that in just over a year she'd be asked to run the operation.
But back in September, she was promoted to assistant GM, and when the incumbent GM, Trevor Gooby, was hired by the Pirates to run their Florida operations, Christy, who had been sent by the club last fall to the scouting school run by the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau (one of Theo Epstein's young guns, Brian O'Halloran, was a fellow student), was hired for the top spot.
"I saw her work ethic, her willingness to take on new projects, the degree of success she's had with a real can-do attitude, and the fact she is very bright," said Craig Callan, the Dodgers' vice president in charge of minor league facilities and spring training, who announced her promotion last week.
Christy becomes one of a handful of women who are minor league GMs, working for an organization that has one woman already in a high-profile position, Kim Ng, who is assistant general manager to Dodgers GM Paul DePodesta.
"Did it make a difference, male or female? No," Callan said. "It didn't add any points for her, but it certainly didn't hurt her, either."
As GM, Christy will oversee all baseball operations for the Vero Beach team, as well as extended spring training and the Gulf Coast Dodgers. She is currently faced with the challenge of getting the Dodgers' spring training facility, which took heavy damage in last fall's hurricanes, ready for the big club next month.
With a background that gives her much in common with the types of highly educated young men who are being hired and promoted rapidly in baseball, Christy would appear to have a great opportunity to one day become part of the pool of female executive talent that will be considered for big league GM jobs. For now, she said, that's not even something she contemplates.
"For the time being," she said, "I'll try to sink my teeth into what's in front of me. That's enough to look at."
Millar bats around a few thoughts
While David Ortiz was dismayed that the Red Sox explored the possibility of dealing fellow Dominican slugger Manny Ramirez again this winter, Kevin Millar wasn't surprised.
"I think when you're making that kind of money, I believe that's going to happen every year," Millar said by phone Wednesday, the night he learned that he was safe for another year with the Sox, the team electing to trade first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz instead. "When you're still owed $100 million, that just comes with the territory. It was nothing to do with Manny. They love Manny, and he loves playing here. Manny is a tremendous person, and a tremendous guy in the clubhouse, and he gives you .300, 40 home runs, and 120 RBIs every year. Why wouldn't you want him? But when there's that kind of money involved, your name is going to keep being brought up."
One of Millar's closest friends on the team, Gabe Kapler, signed to play in Japan this season, but Millar is excited about the player the Sox acquired to fill Kapler's reserve outfielder role, Jay Payton.
"Gabe Kapler had tremendous intangibles," said Millar, "but I played with Jay Payton in the Dominican in '96 and he's a good guy with a great makeup, and with a Kapler body. And wait till you see Edgar Renteria. I played with him in the minors. He got to the big leagues faster than I did, because he's better. He's a tremendous player, and a tremendous guy in the clubhouse."
Millar expects he'll still hear some grief about his revelation that players were doing shots of Jack Daniel's in the clubhouse during the postseason.
"That thing was so blown out of proportion -- oh my God," said Millar. "The thing was so stupid. They made it sound like I was saying we were a bunch of alcoholics, like right, we'd be drinking before a game. It's hard enough to hit a 95-mile-an-hour fastball sober, never mind drunk.
"I'm on the `Best Damn Sports Show,' we're all joking around, and I talk about something that was symbolic, like a toast. It had nothing to do with alcohol. I could have said we'd all wear the same T-shirts, and it would have meant the same thing."
It can be a dangerous game in Venezuela
The disappearance of former Red Sox pitcher Rich Garces for 10 days from his winter league team in his native Venezuela was not a kidnapping, as had been reported by one Venezuelan media outlet, though initially it was treated as such by authorities until Garces surfaced. A Red Sox official with knowledge of the affair said that family problems may have been behind Garces's absence. Garces's brother, Jesus, works for the Sox as a scout in Venezuela.
Increasingly, big league ballplayers and their families have become targets of violent crime in Venezuela, the most notable recent case being the kidnapping of Maura Villaroel, the mother of former Sox closer Ugueth Urbina. Villaroel has been missing since Sept. 1, and according to authorities, her kidnappers are demanding a $3 million ransom.
The homicide rate in Venezuela has more than tripled over the past decade, according to the British publication The Economist. And there have been scores of kidnappings in the last five years.
"Baseball players are targets because people know that they have money," Diego Arria, who served four years as Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations, told the Miami Herald. "Wealthy people like bankers know how to protect themselves and their families. But in many cases, baseball players and other athletes come from humble backgrounds, and their families live in humble areas. They become easy targets because they really don't know how to protect themselves."
Etc.
Mad money
With over a billion dollars spent on free agent signings this winter, some members of the ownership fraternity are squawking at what they perceive as reckless behavior by the lords of the realm.
"It seemed like there was sanity for a couple of years, but now all my brethren decided to go crazy," Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy told reporters Friday. "I don't know what happened. Maybe they drank some funny water, and they all decided they're back on the binge."
Padres owner John Moores, who with Sox principal owner John W. Henry was just placed on baseball's executive council, was similarly put out.
"I'm appalled," Moores said last week. "I am loath to criticize some of my fellow geniuses, and not all of the clubs participated in the orgy. But some of the guys are going to rue the day they paid out so much money in long-term contracts. It isn't the money so much as the long-term deals.
"I guess some of these guys got that [satellite] radio money and lost their minds. It's amazing to me how some owners and players think the players actually get better during the offseason. Some of these guys are lucky to be playing baseball, let alone signing million-dollar contracts. Some of these players who signed long-term deals are going to be out of baseball when they get their last paycheck."
A blizzard of dollars
Has anybody had a better winter than uber-agent Scott Boras? By the time Magglio Ordonez signs -- he's looking for a five-year deal in the neighborhood of $14 million per, despite a knee condition that cut short his season and had him going to Austria for a controversial treatment -- Boras's big-ticket clients will have raked in close to $400 million. Those clients also include Carlos Beltran, Jason Varitek, Derek Lowe, Adrian Beltre, J.D. Drew, and Odalis Perez.
Point man
Carlos Delgado has an unusual trigger mechanism for the vesting option year of his new contract with the Marlins. Instead of such conventional triggers as games played, plate appearances, or performance levels, Delgado's option kicks in based on a points system tied to MVP voting. He gets 10 points for winning the MVP, down to 1 point for finishing 10th. Winning the World Series MVP would yield 20 points and a league championship MVP is worth 10. Delgado must total 30 points in four years to vest.
No cake for him
A father's birthday just isn't what it used to be. Pedro Martinez, who grudgingly showed up in New York for the Mets' fan caravan last week, now says he not only will be on time when Mets pitchers and catchers report, he'll probably even show up early. Martinez said he just might drive up from the home he has in Miami ahead of the report date. With the Sox, of course, Martinez traditionally was a late arrival, citing his father's birthday as his excuse.
Not to worry, Papi of Pedro, Martinez did say his promptness may be just a temporary condition: "This is my first year with the Mets. I need to give them my presence and I need to be there whenever they need me. After this year, I will probably say, `I'm staying [home] because I'm working.' But this is my first year and I wanted to show up and not start on the wrong foot."
Less than intimidating
The Red Sox aren't exactly trumpeting the signing of Japanese reliever Denny Tomori, a 37-year-old righthander with a submarine delivery who at this advanced stage in his career decided to give the big leagues a shot. Tomori, who will come to camp trying to win a spot as a setup man, had a tryout in California last month and left some people unimpressed, including legendary Blue Jays scout Bobby Mattick, who recently died at the age of 87. "When Bobby comes back at 87 and says he was hoping to find a bat [to hit against Tomori], then you pass," Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi told the Toronto Star.
Honorable mention
A nice honor for one of the good guys: Worcester native Ted Lekas, a scout for the Blue Jays since 1988 and former coach at Quinsigamond Community College, is being inducted into the National Junior College Athletic Association Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in May, during the JC World Series. Lekas had a winning percentage of .705 in his seven seasons at Quinsig, and led his team to three straight JC World Series appearances from 1983-85.
And lift a glass to Boston College grad John "Boog" Sciambi, who just landed a gig on ESPN to broadcast 30 games on Monday and Wednesday nights, while also doing his own show on ESPN Radio in Miami. Sciambi, 34, began his career as a play-by-play man for the independent Boise Hawks, and had been with the Marlins the last eight seasons.
A great catch
Material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.
