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The Replacements To lose a franchise player is not to lose all hope
Sports Illustrated's Stephen Cannella checks in with his baseball thoughts every Thursday throughout the season on CNNSI.com. You can hear the pride, and maybe a little bit of wistfulness, in Curt Schilling's voice when he talks about his former team. The right-hander, who was traded to Arizona last year after nine seasons in Philadelphia, is still friendly with many current Phillies. Sitting in the home clubhouse at Bank One Ballpark last weekend, Schilling referred to most of the Phillies by first name (as in, "Robert has the best right-handed stuff of anyone I've ever played with," referring to starter Robert Person) and from the time he spent chatting up his former teammates during batting practice and from the insights he had into the Phils' fast start, it's clear he still has his finger on the pulse of the Philadelphia clubhouse. "I still pay attention to them, watch them a lot on TV," he said, a day after the Phillies beat him, 5-1, in his first start against his former team. "I like to see them do well -- when they're not playing against us." It's natural that a player would continue to have a soft spot for the team with which he built his career and rose to stardom, even if it's a team that was, as the Phillies were, essentially forced into trading him. What's made this season so remarkable, however, is that teams which said emotional goodbyes to franchise players over the last year have flourished in the absence of these supposed centerpieces of their lineups. It's like a little kid who loses his favorite toy. The sadness disappears as soon as he starts having fun with a new one. Exhibit A, of course, is the Mariners, for whom replacing departed superstars has become as routine as having tires rotated. The team that barely skipped a beat after losing Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr. has blossomed in the absence of Alex Rodriguez, who bolted to the Rangers as a free agent last winter. Thanks to Japanese import Ichiro Suzuki, free-agent signee Bret Boone and the AL's top bullpen, the Mariners are off to the best start in franchise history and are already cruising toward a division title. The Indians find themselves in a similar boat. Juan Gonzalez has so ably mimicked Manny Ramirez's production (through Thursday's games Gonzalez had a .364 batting average, 11 homers and 42 RBIs; meanwhile Ramirez was hitting .412 with 14 homers and 50 RBIs) that Cleveland fans are having trouble remembering that they ever bemoaned Ramirez's free-agent departure to Boston. The Phillies put an end to an ongoing soap opera by dealing Schilling to the Diamondbacks at last season's trading deadline. Fans might fantasize about how big the Philadelphia's lead in the NL East might be if Schilling were still fronting its rotation, but the players the Phils acquired in that deal are the reasons the team is in first place. First baseman Travis Lee (.286, seven homers, 18 RBIs) has been the team's most consistent hitter this season. Left-hander Omar Daal is 4-0. Vicente Padilla pitched well out of the bullpen before he went on the disabled list with an ankle injury last month; he's been replaced by the fourth player included in the Arizona deal, Nelson Figueroa. "If Curt doesn't lose another game all year, that's great," says Phillies GM Ed Wade "We knew what we were giving up when we made that trade. But we got four guys we think will help us now and in the future." When 17-game winner Tommy John left Los Angeles and signed with the Yankees as a free agent after the 1978 season, The Sporting News ran this now-famous headline: DODGERS CAN FEEL FLUSH EVEN WITHOUT JOHN. That didn't turn out to be true -- a year after going to the World Series, L.A. finished in third place without John in '79 -- but the lesson of this season so far is that losing a franchise player doesn't necessarily mean a team's hopes go down the drain. The message here is one that's both sad and hopeful: In this mercenary era, no player, no matter how talented or popular, is irreplaceable. Remember that when your favorite free agent skips town next winter. Sports Illustrated staff writer Stephen Cannella covers the baseball beat for
the magazine. Touching Base appears every Thursday on CNNSI.com.
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