Goodbye to Chacon as Red Sox say hello

ED WADE Push came to shove

HOUSTON - At the lowest point of his relationship with Ed Wade, the general manager who fired him as manager of the Phillies, Terry Francona never resorted to inflicting bodily harm.

The last time he saw Wade, Francona said recently, the men chatted amicably while working out on adjacent treadmills during baseball's last winter meetings.

Like Francona, Wade ultimately was fired in Philadelphia. He landed in Houston this season as GM of the Astros, the team the Red Sox face this weekend in their last round of interleague play. But this week, Wade saw firsthand what happens when a disgruntled employee abandons any pretense of civility.

In a shocking breach of protocol, Astros pitcher Shawn Chacon, after refusing a summons to a meeting with Wade and Cecil Cooper in the manager's office, threw the GM to the floor of the Astros clubhouse.

Initially, Wade had refused to discuss the details of what happened. Chacon, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, said their confrontation turned physical after Wade loudly and profanely berated him, admonishing him to look in a "[expletive] mirror."

The upshot? The Astros yesterday placed Chacon on waivers, owner Drayton McLane saying at a team meeting that such insubordination would not be tolerated.

"I did not raise my voice to the player, curse the player," Wade said in a press conference yesterday. "I did not make any defamatory remarks toward the player. Chacon responded with profane and threatening remarks and got up from his seat. He moved in front of me until we were chest to chest and then he shoved me to the ground. When I attempted to get to my feet, he shoved me a second time. At this point, players and coaches intervened."

Wade said this wasn't the first problem with Chacon. He said the pitcher ignored pitching coach Dewey Robinson when he asked him to throw a bullpen session during Tuesday's game. Wade said Chacon also ignored Robinson when he approached him during the first inning of a game June 1 at Milwaukee.

Wade said Cooper followed Chacon to the clubhouse to "settle him down" during that game, but instead had to pull him from the game. Chacon was fined for that incident.

"As an organization, we believe that we have fairly treated this player," Wade said. "His pattern of disrespect and defiance to me, to the manager, the pitching coach, and most importantly the organization led us to this decision."

The Astros say they will release Chacon if he clears waivers. The union said it would contest that action if they do so.

The Sox, meanwhile, were braced for the possibility that they will be without Coco Crisp, who was still awaiting word yesterday on whether his seven-game suspension will be reduced. Crisp's appeal was heard earlier this week in Boston.

Logic would dictate a decision is imminent, and the expectation is that Major League Baseball disciplinarian Bob Watson will knock off no more than a game or two from the suspension. That makes it likely Crisp will miss next week's rematch with the Tampa Bay Rays in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Crisp's absence would seem to make a resumption of hostilities between the teams less likely, inasmuch as he was a central figure in the run-up to the bench-clearing brawl June 5 in Fenway Park, not to mention one of its enthusiastic combatants when the fighting broke out. After being hit by a pitch, Crisp charged the mound, ducked a roundhouse right from pitcher James Shields, then landed a couple of shots before disappearing in a pile of angry Rays. He emerged scratched, disheveled, but smirking for a Fenway crowd that roared its approval.

The Rays were swept in that series, but have lost little since. Yesterday, they completed a three-game sweep of their cross-state rivals, the Florida Marlins, to draw within a half-game of the first-place Sox in the American League East. The Rays have been spectacularly efficient at home, with a record of 30-13, and while closer Jonathan Papelbon made considerable noise about unfinished business with the Rays, the Sox may be best served by avoiding extracurricular activity, or they may find themselves leaving Tropicana Field wondering where they misplaced the division lead.

Whatever happens in Houston - and first and foremost, the Sox are trusting that Daisuke Matsuzaka tonight reverts to form after being stopped by the Cardinals in his return to the rotation last Saturday - this Sox odyssey does not reach its epic-making potential until its final stop: four games in New York over the Fourth of July weekend against the Yankees. The Bombers are 14-9 in June and, for all their springtime travails, look capable of making the kind of push the Sox expect from them summer in, summer out.

This will not be a season-defining trip for the Sox. But it promises a fascinating glimpse of the drama that surely lies ahead.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.