Pavano meets with Mussina
Posted by: Peter Abraham - Posted in Misc on Feb 16, 2007 
Print This Post
| 
Email This Post
After hearing what Mike Mussina had to say about him yesterday, Carl Pavano requested a meeting after today’s practice.
The two met for 10 minutes in the office of clubhouse manager Rob Cucuzza.
Pavano said he was satisfied and understood Mussina’s frustration with him. Mussina told us he apologized for making his comments in public.
Said Pavano: “We’re both in the rotation, we need to be on each other’s side.”
Asked if he were convinced that Pavano wanted to pitch for the Yankees, Mussina nodded his head. “It sounds that way, yeah,” he said. “It sounds like it’s No. 1 on his priority list.”
I’ll have audio from both players up later on.
Mussina is going to make one great pitching coach one day. If hes the one that spurs Pavano on it will be even better
this is one audio I really want to hear.
Cool.
I am impressed on two counts: first, that Pavano requested the meeting; and second, that he did so soon after Mussina’s comments in the press, so that the “situation” did not have a chance to fester.
Now, maybe we can all move forward from here, and let his performance do the speaking.
Props to the Hot Karl for requesting a meeting with the Moose. A shrewd move – makes him look like a standup guy (I can’t believe I just said that) and gets the trash talk out of the papers.
I’ll probably regret this post.
I actually think this is the best possible course of action.
I was a little late to comment on Mussina’s scolding of Pavano, but I actually agreed with him, since he’s the elder statesman of the starting rotation (Pettitte is in a weird position, because though he has a longer history with the Yanks than Mussina, he hasn’t been with the Yanks since 2003. That means that the only two pitchers on staff that were on the Yankees when Pettitte last was in Pinstripes were Mussina and Mariano – I don’t recall if Proctor was in the Yankee dugout during the 2003 playoff run, but he didn’t get to pitch for the major league staff).
2. Pavano has taken Mussina’s words to heart, and has then approached Mussina in a contrite manner to control this situation before it escalates out of control.
Personally, I think Cashman’s manouvers will mean that Pavano will have a cleaner slate this year, in that a couple of the guys who could have made his life miserable aren’t there anymore (Randy Johnson, Gary Sheffield, and to a lesser extent Wright and the late Lidle. Even poor old Bernie Williams, who I certainly don’t think of as a martinet, will probably not be around this year)
3. I recall reading how Johnny Damon was frustrated about not being able to pick up the Yankees when he tried to pep-rally them last year.
Well, this whole situation shows me that Yankee players are starting to respond to internal policing, and that certain team leaders are doing what they have to do.
(Interestingly, I rank Mussina and Giambi as the 4th and 5th longest serving Yankees on the current team, since Bernie’s probably gone and Pettitte is kind of a weird case).
For some reason I do not think that this will be the last meeting with a player that Pavano has. Although the others may not be played out in the media ie someone making a comment and then Pavano having to have a meeting. As I have said earlier if Pavano thought as he had said in his press conference a few weeks ago that he did not have any problem in the clubhouse that this certainly got his attention and made him realize he does.
I think that was a classy move by Pavano. That bumps him up a few notches in my book.
Good for Pavano. there’s still a long way ahead, but he’s been starting to cross the bridge
Pavs still has a long way to go with his team but this was a good first step. But what about his childish statement that the media was to blame for his image problems? Pavs seriously needs to undo the damage there too or his credibility and relationship with the writers is completely shot. Sometime before the end of spring training, Pavs should invite the media he has insulted out for a big meal and show up in a crash test dummy costume to poke a little fun at himself – - and to apologize.
I can’t say the media isn’t responsible for Pavano’s image. The New York media is what it is. If he spent the last 2 years in Miami, we may hear a story here and there. Yeah, it’s a poor excuse and nobody wants to hear it, but you can’t say the media didn’t have something to do with the mold of Carl Pavano.
Discussions on Everything…
[...]the following are a few references to websites online that we link to because we feel there’re worth checking out[...]…
Read was interesting, stay in touch…
[...]listed below are a few urls to web-sites that we link to since we believe they really are worthy of checking out[...]…