Xavier Nady, still helping the Mets cause

I was a big fan of Xavier Nady for his half-season on the Mets. It was only due to the misfortune of Duaner Sanchez's taxi accident that the Mets traded Nady to pick up some bullpen help in Roberto Hernandez (and picked up Oliver Perez in the deal, as well). My fan-ocity (term still not trademarked) of Nady is still growing, as he just hit a solo homer in the 8th inning to put the Pirates ahead of the Braves.


On the subject of Nady, his story of finding out he'd been traded still amuses me. He dropped back 30-something (I could look up the exact number but I don't feel particularly motivated right now) games in the standings by going from the Mets to the Pirates in that deal. Here's the story, as I remember it: Nady said he didn't even know his name had ever come up in trade talks, and was at the beach with his fiancee all day. When he got back to his hotel room, he picked up his phone and saw there were over a dozen missed calls from Omar Minaya. "I knew that wasn't a good sign," Nady said. He then called Minaya and thanked him for allowing him the opportunity of being the Mets' right fielder for those previous four months.

"I knew that wasn't a good sign." It reminds me now of Bob Uecker's Hall of Fame Induction speech, where he listed the signs he noticed that he was possibly being released from a team: (1) Walking into the clubhouse on day one and having a coach tell you that visitor's aren't allowed; (2) Having management tell you they want you to consider joining the team as the 2nd Base Coach if they ever need one; (3) Being told by a manager to "Go grab a bat and kill this rally" or to "Go up there without a bat and try to work a walk." Oh, Bob Uecker. We all love you. But Xavier Nady is pretty good, too.


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Edit by Joe Cook at 11:53 PM:

Nady hit another 3-run homer in the top of the 12th inning to put the Pirates up 12-9. The Braves scored two runs in the bottom of the inning, but were finally retired. Xavier Nady, with his 4-7, 2 HR, 4 Run, 4 RBI game against the Braves today, shares the honors with the entire Washington Nationals team (who defeated the Phillies [bullpen] handily today) for my daily "Non-Mets Player Mets Player of the Day." This is the Nationals' second selection this year, and second in a row, as yesterday they won the honor for knocking off the Braves in extras on an extra-inning blast by Ryan Zimmerman (who was teammates in AAU Baseball with David Wright).