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i have to toss in one more thing about vlad and how his career has worked out... it's kind of odd.
he was in montreal up until the 2003 season, where he injured his knee (i believe... or was it his back?) and in 100 games was like .330/25/79 or something going out onto the FA market. he had a deal that had paid him up to $10mil/year in that last year, and all things considered he wanted to stay in montreal. MLB owned the expos and were doing their best to drive the franchise value down so the move to washington could be complete and thus they didn't even offer him a real contract offer, so he had to leave.
he went to the angels, and proceeded to pull an andre dawson and win a MVP (his only one at that) his first year out of montreal. the angels made the playoffs and got stomped by the redsox, vlad sucked until he hit a game-tying grandslam in an elimination game, which the angels ended up losing in extra innings.
from there he hobbled on, racking up unimpressive playoff series (he didn't do shit against the whitesox, for example) and having gradually declining numbers until the wheels fell off last year. entering the season he was coming off of offseason knee surgery. he came back for spring training and played a week or two of the regular season, then had problems with that knee. DL time ensued. scioscia said "you're our DH" and he said "fuck that i'm a RF, but i'll do what i have to do" so he came back from the injury and DH'd for all but two games. i think the first game in RF he had a grand slam or something, or at least a HR ~4+ RBI game. he eventually got a second game in RF and he tweaked that knee again, landing him on the DL for another month+. he came back and hobbled around, ending up at like .295/15/50 in ~100 games. he ended up having a good postseason, hitting .378 overall and the best moment was when the angels were up 2-0 on teh redsox in the DS and in a pivotal moment francona had papelbon out there and decided to intentionally walk torii hunter to get to vlad, and he hit what ended up being the gamewinning RBI single. they finally got past the redsox.
he produced against the yankees, but alas, the angels weren't good enough to overtake them.
once again, he wanted to basically stay with his team. i remember reading angels msgboards and it was like 90/10 to resign the guy because even though it looks bad and he's kind of goofy, he's still their guy. i don't know how the negotiations went, but the angels decided that they'd rather have world series hero(/MVP?) hideki matsui and thus ended vlad's 5 year run with the angels. he ended up bouncing over to texas, where he was liek a .380 career hitter against the rangers in that ballpark, with some goofy one year $5mil deal with a "mutual option" for the next season which basically means it won't get picked up either way, cuz if he blows the rangers won't want it, and if he performs he won't want it.
and welp, now the rangers are up 3-1 in the ALCS and seem to have a very good shot to go to to the world series.
it's just kind of funny that if the guy had his druthers he'd prolly be a national right now, with no chance at sniffing the playoffs in his career but he'd be able to do what he does. hell, those druthers would have kept him in anaheim, where the angels basically tanked this year, eventually getting passed up by the offense-free athletics before it was all said and done. and now he's got a very good shot at legitimately playing in a world series, even though the transactions that sent him from team to team weren't really what he wanted to do.
sometimes good things happen to good people. and yeah, i know i don't know the guy know the guy... but hey, he can afford his illegitimate children. and that's the mark of a good man, dammit!
we'll see what happens the rest of this year and into the offseason... i hope he works something out with the rangers because even tho he totally swooned from ~mid july until ~september this year, man, it looks like he's got a shot at 500/+ HR and if he keeps htat career batting average around .320 that should be a damn-near-automatic ticket to the hall.
</storytime>
_________________ Curious Hair wrote: Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?
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