GM’s Go Balls-to-the-wall during the winter meetings
Pulling off a trade to get Gavin Floyd and a player to be named from the Phillies in exchange for Freddy Garcia left White Sox GM Kenny Williams physically and mentally exhausted. So exhausted, in fact, that he accidentally divulged the name of the player to be named when announcing the trade:
Williams let slip during the announcement that the other player in the deal is pitcher Gio Gonzalez — traded by the White Sox to Philadelphia a year ago in the Jim Thome deal.
“It’s 11 o’clock at night, what do you want?” Williams said.
But as exhausted as Williams was, his trading partner, Phillies GM Pat Gillick, was in even worse condition, so drained and emotionally battered that he lost command of his voice and had to be replaced at the announcing by Phillies assistant GM Mike Arbuckle.
But the Winter Meetings were the toughest on Cubs GM Jim Hendry, who was under so much stress from his efforts to sign Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, and Mark DeRosa that he suffered a mild heart attack, was rushed to the hospital to have an angeoplasty, and had to complete his four-year, $40 million dollar deal with pitcher Ted Lilly from his hospital bed.
In other news, Mets GM Omar Minaya suffered a ruptured spleen in a very physical late-night bargaining session with superagent Scott Boras, and A’s GM Billy Beane was hospitalized for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after his maniacal, week-long pursuit of free agent DH Mike Piazza.
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