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The
Man Who Cared Too Much
by Mike Ashmore
May 10, 2007 - Democrat
Hang around baseball long enough, and you'll realize that
there are some people in the game who don't care.
Bill Masse is not one of those people. In fact, his downfall
in the Yankees organization may have been that he cared too
much.
Masse was fired following the season after he was quoted in
an August newspaper article questioning the Yankees handling
of pitching prospect, Phil Hughes.
Now the manager of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the
Toronto Blue Jays affiliate in the Eastern League, Masse was
swarmed by a group of reporters upon his return to
Waterfront Park last week.
"It's minor league baseball, so some people made a big
deal about it," Masse told the Democrat in a
one-on-one interview. "I was only here for two years,
it's not like I was Joe Torre and I spent eleven years
somewhere."
A former player in the Yankees organization, Masse's firing
came as a shock. He'd just got done leading the team to
their second straight playoff berth, and was considered to
be a candidate for the managerial position in Triple-A
Scranton.
"Trenton was definitely a place I was looking forward
to coming back to," Masse said. "The situation
with me and the Yankees had nothing to do with
Trenton."
As for Hughes, he was kept on a strict pitch count last
season in Trenton and this year in Scranton, and wasn't
building up the arm strength necessary to go to deep into a
game at the Major League level.
"The funny thing with Phil and all that stupid stuff
that got blown out of proportion was all I ever wanted to do
was do what's best for Phil," Masse said.
"My only point that I made, back when I made it, was
that if you're going to bring Phil Hughes to the big
leagues, you better build him up to know what it's like to
pitch in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings."
And sure enough, with Hughes pitching into the seventh
inning for the first time since a June 18, 2006 start for
the Thunder, he pulled his hamstring after 6.1 no-hit
innings in just his second Major League game.
"It's baseball, guys are going to get hurt," he
said. "It probably could have happened to Phil earlier
in the game, who knows. Did Phil Hughes get hurt because
he'd never gone seven innings in his professional career?
Probably not. But why take that chance?"
It was the Yankees who took a chance by firing Masse, a rare
manager who genuinely had the best interests of his players
in mind.
With the Blue Jays in the same division, only time will tell
if the move will be a chance best left not taken.
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