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An MLB General Manager's Offseason To-Do List

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As the baseball season comes to a close, Bill Littlefield finds himself imagining which moves the front-office executives charged with getting their teams into the Fall Classic next fall are considering.

If I am the general manager of any of the ball clubs that did not find themselves in the seventh game of the World Series on Wednesday night, I am wondering where I can find a guy who looks much too adequately fed to be agile and have soft hands at third base, and who also has a quick bat, although he looks too substantial for that, too.

I am also dreaming about outfielders who are so fast that hitting the ball anywhere near them is pointless, and also not particularly near them.

Bill Littlefield

If I am such a general manager, I am also wondering, perhaps out loud, even if there is no one listening, where I can locate a young man who looks as if he is just barely old enough to have finished high school, although I do not much care if he has done that, as long as he can throw about 98 miles per hour and put the ball where the catcher wishes him to put it, and where the same batters who have quite recently scored 11 runs against my team wish it would not be at all, or at least very rarely.

If I am one of those general managers, I am also dreaming about outfielders who are so fast that hitting the ball anywhere near them is pointless, and also not particularly near them. I am wondering if any such outfielders would rather be in the burg where I do business, instead of in Kansas City, which, although it was featured in a fine song by Wilbert Harrison back when I was a boy, is perhaps not such an attractive setting for stardom as New York might be, or Boston, or Seattle if these outfielders like coffee.

[sidebar title="Honoring A Friend's Final Wish" width="630" align="right"] Broadcaster Denny Matthews spread his best friend's ashes at the World Series. [/sidebar]Also if I am one of those general managers, I am reading the newspaper, because I am not one of those very young general managers who would not do that unless the electricity failed and there were no batteries in all the land, or anyway in my desk drawer. I see in the newspaper that Jose Canseco shot his finger off this week, and I remember that once Jose Canseco said, "What I speak out of my mouth is the truth. It burns like fire."

I glance up from the paper at the ceiling, which will have to do, since I am in my office and I cannot raise my eyes to the sky, and I hope that the next Jose Canseco does not find himself dressing in a uniform several stories below me. Also I think, "Can it really have been 26 years ago that Jose Canseco was the most valuable player?" And I think I'd better find that well-padded third baseman and that kid pitcher and at least one of those outfielders sooner, rather than later.

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Bill Littlefield Host, Only A Game
Bill Littlefield was the host of Only A Game from 1993 until 2018.

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