I have a hard time believing this is a true story, but I found it pretty
funny nonetheless...

Tom Candiotti fesses up: fantasy baseball scheme
Scott Ostler

Sunday, October 8, 2006

You gotta admire a ballplayer who will do anything, even risk injury, to
help his team win. Unless it's his fantasy-league team, and the injury
he's risking is to someone else.
This, then, is a cautionary tale of a guy who took the rotisserie stuff
waaaay too seriously.

His name is Tom Candiotti. Remember Candy? Walnut Creek kid, star
pitcher at St. Mary's, became a knuckleballer and pitched 16 seasons in
the major leagues, '98 and '99 for the A's.

Candiotti, now a radio-TV color man for the Diamondbacks, told me his
story, cringing with remorse more than a decade later.

"It's '92 or '93," Candiotti says. "I'm playing for the Dodgers, Jeff
Kent is with the Mets. I'm in a fantasy baseball league. I don't have
Kent on my team and he's off to a torrid start and he's killing me."

The Dodgers are in New York to play the Mets. Ramon Martinez is warming
up in the Dodgers' bullpen to pitch the series opener. Candiotti strolls
to the pen and, within earshot of Martinez, tells pitching coach Ron
Perranoski, "Perry, I just talked to Bret Saberhagen, and Sabes told me
that if Kent gets drilled his first time up, he's mush for the rest of
the series."

First inning, Kent steps to the plate.

"Ramon just absolutely buries one in Kent's ribs," Candiotti says. "It
was so bad that he went down on one knee, and he had to come out of the
game. I sat there thinking, 'What did you just do? You told a complete
lie, you got this guy drilled!'

"After that, it was funny. Pedro Martinez (Ramon's brother) started
drilling Kent, and so did all the other Dominican pitchers. For years,
Ramon drilled Kent every time. ... That winter I'm at a charity golf
tournament, I wind up in Kent's group. We sit together at dinner. He's
the nicest guy in the world. I didn't tell him."

How did Candiotti's fantasy team do?

"When I saw Kent get hit by Ramon, that was the end of my fantasy days.
It was out of control."

I ran the story by Kent. He shrugged.

"Gettin' hit's part of the game," he said. "I've been hit for many
reasons, so a rotisserie league (is no big deal)..."

Then Kent said, "Candiotti, eh? Heh-heh-heh. (Pause) He walks around
with a little dog."

My god, what have I done? Candy, hide the dog.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artic...&sn=001&sc=1000

Ah...I'm not really here wrote:
:/> pitcher at St. Mary's, became a knuckleballer and pitched 16
seasons in
That is funny.

"Ah...I'm not really here" <Ah...imnotreally@asb.sfg> wrote in
news:452becac_3@newsfeed.slurp.net:


Agreed. Here's what I found: it didn't happen in a first game of a
series in New York. I didn't check all Ramon Martinez vs. Mets games in
92-93, but I did check all first games of a LA/NY series at Shea the
entire time that Kent was with the Mets, and unless I missed one,
Martinez only started once, in 1995, and he didn't hit Kent.

JHB


f=/c/a/2006/10/08/SPGSJLKSP71

"Jonathan Bernstein" <jhb@socrates.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
news:Xns98596C5278FA6jhbsocratesberkeleye@207.115. 17.102...
in

Ah, good thinking. It didn't even occur to me to go check it. I just
thought that if the same pitcher(s) keep drilling the same batter, I'd
think the batter has to notice it, and possibly some media, or the local
team announcers would notice, and it'd get into the news somehow.

btw, did they even have fantasy baseball back then? The World Wide Web
didn't exist until 1994. But I've always avoided fantasy baseball until
this year, so what do I know? :-)

"Ah...I'm not really here" <Ah...imnotreally@asb.sfg> wrote in

Oh yeah. I've been in a league since 1987; the roto book's first edition
was 1984, and roto probably peaked around the strike, with other forms of
fantasy emerging after the strike (and with the web).

JHB