It was reported this morning that Cliff Floyd has been running his mouth a bit in Cubs' camp about the decision to send him up to bat with runners on first and second and nobody out in the bottom of the 9th of Game 7 of last year's NLCS. He says that he isn't trying to second guess Randolph, but says that the Mets' manager originally wanted to send someone up to bunt but was talked into pinch hitting with Floyd by bench coach Jerry Manual.
Over at his Newsday blog, David Lennon has some reaction from Mr. Willie:
"That's history," Randolph said. "I don't see how he would know that anyway. That's his opinion. I make all the decisions and my decisions are the ones I stand on. I've talked about that many times, and how I went about that situation, if you want me to rehash it again, I will.I guess it *has* really come to this. We're looking at what amounts to a non-story here, but the Daily News picked up on it this morning and now it's some big to-do and Willie Randolph has to sit there and defend his actions four months after the fact. It's a huge waste of time for everyone involved, but in these early days of training camp there isn't much interesting to write about, so this is the dreck we wind up with."There's no way he could know what I said to any of my coaches. He wasn't sitting on my shoulder right next to me when we were talking. I knew what I wanted to do. I made the decision. I said to you guys what I did - over and over and over - on radio, on TV. I've been very cooperative on this. Again, forgive me if I don't play into this. Forgive me if I don't. To me, you get a little cloud, and the only way it rains is to poke a hole in it. I'm not going to do that.
"Cliff's entitled to say what he wants to say. Cliff's always been very outspoken, I understand that. I love Cliff Floyd. I thought at the time whatever he could give us a chance to win the ballgame. It's all about winning the game."
Wake me up when February ends.