Life can be unsettling when you're sitting on the trading block

Sporting News, The, August 5, 2005 by Todd Jones

For players, the weeks and days leading up to the trading deadline can be fun or frustrating. The Marlins this year have been the team most of the talk seems to start or finish with. And we've not only been dealing with questions about trades, but we've also had to deal with talk that our skipper, Jack McKeon, might get fired.

We arrive at the park and are bombarded by questions. The media keep pushing to see whether there are cracks in the team. If one player speculates to the wrong media person, boom, you have a major story on your hands. The truth is we know less than you might think on all of these fronts.

We have no idea whether Jack is going to be fired. We get to the clubhouse, we see he's in his office, and we assume he'll be there the whole game. Until he's not, we don't think any differently. Jack is 74 and has been in the game a long time. He has been a G.M., so he knows most managers eventually get fired. But hey, his grandkids are healthy and he has won a World Series, so there's really no downside to anything that happens to him.

How do players deal with this stuff? Well, welcome to our world. It's all about blocking out what you can't control and focusing on what you can--the game. All players think about getting traded when their names come up in rumors. They think about the good times they've had, and they think about the possibility of change and how much fun a new challenge could be.

We're only human, but one reason we get paid the money we do is because we are expected to perform regardless of whether we're being mentioned in rumors and speculation. The good players feed off that negativity and uncertainty.

Being traded the first time hurts. You think you're going to be with one team for your whole career. You've found a place to live, you know everybody from the clubhouse guys to the grounds crew guys, and you're comfortable. Then you develop a chip on your shoulder because you think one team doesn't want you. But if you focus on another team maybe wanting you desperately, you can deal with the situation better.

What can be frustrating is when you catch wind of a trade and it's a team that you think would be a great fit, and then you find out your G.M. or their G.M. is holding you for ransom. That's when the games become therapeutic. You get lost for 3 hours without having to answer questions or think about where you might be dealt. You just play. Really, what else can you do? Getting stressed out isn't going to change things anyway.

It's only your and your family's futures at stake. Just block it out. Yeah, right.

Todd Jones is a reliever for the Marlins. E-mail him at tjones@sportingnews.com.