FYI … I have an indepth profile on Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon in today’s Eagle-Tribune.
He is a fascinating individual.
Anyway, here is a story I found while surfing from the St. Petersburg Times on Sept. 2, 2007.
It is Maddon at his best:
Rays manager Joe Maddon made it clear that he didn’t believe there was anything illegal about Alex Rodriguez’s bat, but he still requested it be confiscated Saturday afternoon an inning after Yankees manager Joe Torre did the same to Rays 3B Akinori Iwamura.
Rodriguez’s bat didn’t have a flat barrel end like Iwamura’s (Torre reasoned he had never seen that before), but the majors’ home run leader had just hit his 45th of the season in the first.
“It was just retaliation,” Maddon said after the Rays’ 9-6 loss. “There’s nothing wrong with Alex Rodriguez. He’s a great player. It was tit-for-tat entirely.”
Umpire crew chief Dana DeMuth said Maddon argued there was “something inside the bat altering the distance of the ball.”
“I said it’s an illegal bat,” Maddon said. “I said I can’t see inside it but there might be something inside that bat. I don’t have X-Ray vision. He had 45 home runs and it’s Sept. 1. That was my argument.”
