royalsandcelebs

Ugh… batting ninth and playing shortstop… Felix Martinez?!!  But what about…

Angel Berroa?  Were you expecting Angel Berroa?  I know, it’s the obvious choice.  Berroa was the “key” player in the Johnny Damon trade, the piece that made the trade look like it wasn’t a complete and unmitigated disaster.  For a while, Baird didn’t look too far off.  Berroa hit well in the minors, and people couldn’t stop talking about his defense.  He finally came up that magical 2003 season, played reasonably well, and stole Rookie of the Year honors from Hideki Matsui.  He followed that year up with three years of the worst shortstop play in baseball.  Year after year, we expected, then hoped, then just prayed that Berroa would get his hitting, power, speed, and common sense back, and, for some reason, he never did.  His skills completely diminished.  He even aged more than three years in that time (the organization learned Berroa was about 3 years older than his paperwork indicated).  So, our quick, young promising shortstop, became our slow, older, washed up middle infielder.

That said, he’s not on my list.  Nope.  Berroa put up numbers one season that warranted him being on a major league team.  Sure, he pulled a Pat Listach (oh, I went there), but he did prove that, at one point and time, he did belong here.  Did we wait too long at three years?  Yeah.  We did.  Still, there’s one shortstop who deserves this honor more than Luis Silverio’s son-in-law.  Fightin’ Felix Martinez, come on down!!!

Jay Bell was a Kansas City Royal for about 12 seconds.  Actually, it was about a year.  We traded Joe Randa and another guy who will show up later on my starting pitcher list (who could it be?) for Jeff King and Jay Bell.  Pretty incredible move, no?  Two old guys who were at their last great peak, traded to a team that wasn’t going anywhere.  It was 1997, and the Royals were not an unmitigated disaster yet–just bad.  Those were the years the Indians finished in first every season, and we traded places with the White Sox and the Twins for second place.  One year, we finished in second place and 25 games out of first place!  We were thiiiiiiis close, guys!  If we’d have had six more months, we could have closed that thing to 10 games, easy.

Sorry for drifting off-subject.  We traded for Jay Bell and Jeff King, and we also had Dean Palmer and Chili Davis.  This was an OLD team, and Jay Bell knew it.  We were renting him.  He hit for good power (better power than he’d averaged his whole career), played dependable defense (a notch down from his predecessor, the great Greg Gagne), and didn’t run out ground balls.  Despite not trying while wearing a bad team’s uniform, he was still instilled with the responsibility of coaching years later.  He managed to tell numerous Arizona Diamondbacks to try only if their team was good, and to build up unpredictable RBI stats if their team was bad, in order to increase their value in the market.  So, after a worthless one-and-done year from Jay Bell, we had to make somebody play shortstop.  His name was Felix Martinez.

If I told you that the Royals were going to start a shortstop who had never hit over .260 in five minor league seasons, and had made 128 errors in the last three seasons, would you believe me?  I wouldn’t believe me.  Even if I again said it was for the Kansas City Royals, I still wouldn’t believe me.  “That’s not possible,” I would say.  “All baseball teams have standards.  This is below what any team should field.  They should concede from Major League Baseball if this is true!”  Well, they didn’t concede, but it sure was true.  Opening day shortstop Felix Martinez.

Oh, and what a magical start to the season “ol’ Feelie” would give us (I’m sure Tony Muser called him “Feelie”–I know I would).  He played in 34 games, had 85 at bats, hit 5 RBIs, no home runs, stole 2 bases, made 6 errors, and batted .129.  I know what you think I just did, but no, that is not a typo.  He hit .129.  There was absolutely NO REASON to bring this kid up (common theme in this running blog, along with “The Mitchell Report”).  He had no place above Double-A–none.  This is a prime example of a lack of planning from high above.  You have Jay Bell.  You KNOW you’re not going to re-sign him.  He has hit himself out of your price range, and hasn’t shown the desire to want to stay even if you somehow, magically raised your offer (at the time, we had no owner, and we weren’t buying ANYBODY good).  You have a year to get somebody, ANYBODY, a stop gap, a young kid with promise (a young Angel Berroa-type), and instead, nothing happens, and you have to stroll out Felix Martinez, a shortstop who’s been in your minor league system for five years and has shown that 1)He can’t hit, 2)He can’t field, and 3)Consistent numbers, year after year, indicating that he will NEVER hit and NEVER field.  Like with Ruben Gotay, it’s just as if the team holds open tryouts.  Martinez was so special because he was so uniquely awful.  It’s a great trait.

There’s one more thing about Felix Martinez that I really, truly love.  He had a bit of a temper, and no one saw it until June of 1998.  This is really great.  You see, Mike Sweeney and then-Angels catcher Phil Nevin had a little beef about a play at the plate the previous year, and no one knew they settled it off the field (through lawyers, which is somewhat strange–does that mean there was lawsuit talk over a bulldog play?).  So, when the two teams lined up the next year, two Royals pitchers threw at Nevin.  Then, some Angels threw at some Royals.  Benches cleared.  It got a little out of hand.  Then, it got EXTREMELY out of hand when “ol’ Feelie,” who, mind you, had nothing to do with either the initial Sweeney-Nevin altercation or the beanballs thrown around that night, started punching anyone and everyone around him in the back of their heads.  He was throwing windmills and has butt got stomped.  It was shocking.  It looked like a riot.  Martinez, just running around, donnybrooking with whomever was closest to him and wearing red.

Manager Tony Muser got suspended for 8 games, and Felix Martinez got 5, which, now, doesn’t seem that fair.  It’s like punishing the prison guard with more time than the murderer he was watching.  Sure, a shiv got in, but the guy was so committed to homicide that he’s forfeited his entire freedom.  Think he might find a way to do it again if he really, really wants to?  How’s Tony Muser going to expect Martinez to start clocking people?  You can’t rationalize the insane if you’re, you know, sane.  After the incident, Martinez got sent down to the minors for a year and a half instead of, you know, just being cut.  They told him, “You’re not coming up until you prove you can behave, mister!”  That took a little less than two years.  Awesome.  Could have cut the guy during that time, but no, that was good, too.

When Martinez finally did get his September call-up in 1999, he immediately had to serve his old 5-game suspension from a year ago.  After that, he got a hit in 7 at bats, and was unceremoniously released from the team, due to a four-year-old memo from David Glass to the general manager reading, “Sorry for the late reply, but yeah, he sucks.  Please terminate his contract immediately.  Seriously, put him out of his misery, for God’s sake!”  Martinez played parts of two more seasons with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (you know, before they were good), and played his final game in September of 2001.  Fightin’ Felix, welcome to the big list!  I hope you’re having fun sucker-punching random people.  Hopefully, they aren’t school children.

Next week, I’m going to wrap this sucker up with a few post on our astounding pitching staff–a rotation, some relievers, and a closer, because, as you may remember, our pitching hasn’t been all that great, either.  Any team with Jose Lima on their roster twice has got quite a few leaks to plug.  Check you gators, later.  I’m off to put ice on my swollen Royals memories.

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