For one night, Ordonez worth the cost

Wednesday, September 30, 2009 | Feedback | Print Entry

It's too bad there isn't a transcript of the conversation that took place sometime this summer between Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch and his baseball people about Magglio Ordonez. Presumably, those people presented these facts for Ilitch to digest:

Ordonez's contract contained a vesting option for 2010, for $18 million, and if Ordonez remained in the lineup on a regular basis, he would accumulate the option easily. Ordonez was still an effective player, they presumably said, but at $18 million, he would be enormously overpriced.

At some point in the conversation, somebody presumably pointed out that if you set the whole issue of money aside, the Tigers' chances for winning in 2009 would be improved by keeping Ordonez in the lineup.

For a lot more on Mike Ilitch and his decision on Ordonez, plus the résumés for National League Rookie of the Year, and much more, you must be an ESPN Insider. Insider  
 

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  • Buster Olney Buster Olney

    Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of the Times' best-seller "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," a book about the Paul O'Neill-Tino Martinez Yankees dynasty of 1996-01.

    He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).

    Olney also contributes to ESPN.com, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, "SportsCenter" and "Baseball Tonight."

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