How to win friends and influence people

Wabberjocky · **Posted:** Sun Jul 31, 2005 4:32 pm

Buddy Groom's career with the New York Yankees was short, but his exit could be memorable.

Groom was designated for assignment Saturday when the pitching-starved team signed left-hander Alan Embree, hoping to bolster their bullpen as they chase Embree's former team, the Boston Red Sox, in the AL East.

The New York Post reported in Sunday's editions Groom lashed out at Yankees manager Joe Torre after he slammed Torre's office door on the way out of a meeting with GM Brian Cashman and the manager.

"I wouldn't encourage anybody else to come here thinking you are going to get an opportunity because unless you are one of Joe's boys you are not going to get much of a shot; unless you are one of his three guys," Groom told the Post. "The same thing happened to me in Baltimore [last year]. I went 15 days [without pitching] and [Torre] is where [Oriole manager Lee] Mazzilli learned it."

Continued Groom; "I didn't get a fair shake here. Every time I pitched in key situations here I did the job," Groom told the Post. "Then I became a mop-up guy and didn't get into any games. Guys come here and they don't get a chance unless they are one of the boys."

The Post fingered Tanyon Sturtze, Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera as being "the boys."

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Sun Jul 31, 2005 7:06 pm

He's 40 years old. He's got no real incentive to be nice to anyone.

Wabberjocky · **Posted:** Sun Jul 31, 2005 8:08 pm

And yet you wonder if there's anything to it.

Where I work, we have a "presentation desk" manager who's very partial to the young, pretty women on our desk ... and many suspect they get preferential treatment in scheduling, vacation, prestige-story design, etc. Those who aren't in that inner circle refer to them simply as "his girls."

Wabberjocky · **Posted:** Sun Jul 31, 2005 8:26 pm

More feel-good stories from Gotham:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Tony Womack might be the unhappiest person in the ballpark, and with legitimate reason.
But when he's had the chance to send everyone else home happy, he has not let his discontent get in the way.
"I know I can play," Womack said Sunday after his 11th-inning single lifted the Yankees to another wild, come-from-behind victory, 8-7 over the Angels at Yankee Stadium. "I don't try to prove anything to anybody but me."
The trade deadline came and went, and the Yankees did nothing significant, so Womack, who signed as a free agent to be the starting second baseman, is probably frozen in his current role of sometime outfielder and pinch runner for the rest of the season.
"Do I have a choice?" he said, dismissing reporters and leaving quickly.

Matthew Grieco · **Posted:** Sun Jul 31, 2005 8:42 pm

Womack's unlucky, but he has no legitimate complaint. The Yankees have the probable AL Rookie of the Year as their second baseman now, and that's just the way it goes sometimes.

Wabberjocky · **Posted:** Sun Jul 31, 2005 8:43 pm

I think he and Buddy Groom need a night off to go bowling together.

Oh, wait, Groom just got picked up by the Diamondbacks ... Womack's old team. Where he probably wishes he was.

wordygurdy · **Posted:** Sun Jul 31, 2005 9:07 pm

I have to give Womack credit. Unlike Kenny Lofton, who bristled at his role on the Yankees in 2004, Womack has accepted everything the Yankees have thrown at him stoically. He really was never a good fit; the Yanks would have been better off keeping Miguel Cairo. But there was a miscommunication between Cairo and his agents (who reportedly never told Cairo of the Yankees' contract offer before they assumed he wasn't interested and signed Womack instead).

I've read that the Yankee high command had lost faith in Womack's ability to turn the double play, and that was why the Robinson Cano experiment began. Fortunately for the Yanks and unfortunately for Womack, it paid off.

Matthew's right: That's just the way it goes sometimes. I kind of feel bad for him. He went from being the starting second baseman with a .300-plus average for the pennant-winning Cardinals to an afterthought on what turned out to be a struggling yet still contending team.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Mon Aug 01, 2005 12:25 am

OK, I feel bad for these millionaires.

It's tough when Mariano Rivera and Flash Gordon are deemed more worthy to pitch than you.

Or when you sit on the bench because a rookie can do something better than you can.

Do the Diamondbacks have a farm team in Darfur?

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