http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/16/sports/baseball/16yankees.html Pavano Takes Mound and Mussina Takes Aim
By TYLER KEPNER
Published: February 16, 2007
TAMPA, Fla., Feb. 15 — Mike Mussina and Carl Pavano threw side by side on the bullpen mounds at Legends Field on Thursday morning. It is safe to assume they did not have dinner together Thursday night.
Many of the Yankees still question the competitive drive of Pavano, who has collected roughly $20 million the past two seasons but has not pitched in the majors in 598 days. Just because Pavano is back on a mound does not mean Mussina gives him the benefit of the doubt.
“Do I?” Mussina said. “No, not just yet. I want to see that he wants to do it.”
That crystallized the prevailing view of Pavano among his teammates. They would love to see him pitch. But they are not sure he really wants to.
“He needs to take it upon himself to really want it,” catcher Jorge Posada said. “We’ll see.”
Pavano’s litany of injuries — shoulder, back, buttocks, elbow — became a clubhouse joke last August, when he injured his ribs in a car accident in Florida and failed to tell the team. Teammates mocked Pavano by papering his locker with back pages from New York tabloids. But Pavano never saw it; he was rarely in New York last season.
Still, Pavano said Thursday that his problems in the clubhouse were the creation of the news media. Was he curious as to how teammates would treat him?
“I didn’t think it was going to be that much,” he told reporters Thursday, the Yankees’ first full day of workouts for pitchers and catchers. “I thought it more was hyped up by you guys than everybody else. I have a relationship with all my teammates and conversation with all my teammates.”
Yet Manager Joe Torre said Tuesday that Pavano had a sizable amount of work to do in the clubhouse. When reminded of that, Pavano stayed on message.
“Joe has his opinions on it, but I didn’t come in here nervous that my teammates were going to oust me or give me the cold shoulder,” Pavano said. “Definitely, there’s respect to be earned, but other things that were said, I think, were just things that you guys all had a lot of fun with.”
Pavano and General Manager Brian Cashman have maintained that all of Pavano’s injuries were legitimate. Mussina, who spoke calmly and pointedly about Pavano for several minutes, was not so sure.
“It didn’t look good,” Mussina said. “From a player’s perspective and a teammate’s perspective, it didn’t look good. Was everything just a coincidence? Over and over again? I don’t know.”
The Yankees’ clubhouse, like any, is filled with players who handle discomfort. Scott Proctor led the league in games pitched last season despite a clicking sensation in his elbow. The departed Randy Johnson pitched through constant back pain. Center fielder Johnny Damon played with a broken toe. Mussina pitched with elbow pain in 2005.
“That’s one of the factors,” Mussina said, explaining the clubhouse chill toward Pavano. “That’s how you’re perceived by your teammates, where one guy is out there playing the game despite what’s going on, and someone else is not. That’s how teammates get a bad taste in their mouths.
“If he takes the ball and goes out there and pitches and does the things he’s supposed to be doing, it’ll go away. It’ll go away, because we’re all in this together. We want him to pitch. We need him to pitch.”
Mussina had not expressed those feelings to Pavano, and he was not sure when, or if, he would. Pavano had no plans to address his teammates, and Mussina said they would not want to hear him, anyway.
“Saying something doesn’t mean much to me,” Mussina said. “Actions speak louder than words. I just want him to go out and do what he’s supposed to be doing.”
So does everyone, especially Torre, who urged Pavano to be in the clubhouse when the Yankees visited Tampa Bay last September. Torre explained to Pavano then that he must win back the respect of his teammates. Evidence to the contrary, Torre said he believed his message got through.
“He understands that,” Torre said. “It may not be automatic, but I think over time, during spring training, he can gain that trust and respect back from the players that I know they wish they had the last couple of years.”
INSIDE PITCH
The Yankees will wear black armbands this season in honor of pitcher Cory Lidle, who died in an October plane crash. ... Manager Joe Torre said that his brother, Frank, needs a kidney transplant. Frank Torre, a former major leaguer, had a heart transplant during the 1996 World Series. “His heart is already on its 11th year now,” Joe Torre said. “With all the medication you have to take, the rest of the organs take a beating.” Torre said his brother, who is 75, will know more next week about when he might get a new kidney.
