|
|
Friday, August 25
Borders only real familiar name on team
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES -- No baseball Dream Team in Sydney.
The United States has assembled a collection of up-and-coming
minor-leaguers and journeymen to represent it next month in the
first Olympic baseball tournament open to professionals.
Pat Borders, a 37-year-old catcher who was a major league
journeyman and currently is in the Tampa Bay farm system, was one
of the few recognizable names on the U.S. Olympic team announced
Wednesday.
|
Cotton added to team
|
|
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Outfielder John Cotton of the
Triple-A Colorado Springs Sky Sox was added to the U.S. Olympic
baseball roster Thursday.
The 29-man roster will be cut to 24 by Sept. 15. Los Angeles
Dodgers executive Tommy Lasorda will manage the team.
Cotton, 29, is batting .324 with 16 home runs and 60 RBI.
-- Associated Press
|
Borders also played with Toronto and was the MVP of the World
Series in 1992, the first year baseball was an official Olympic
sport.
Players on major league rosters weren't available for the
Olympics and teams were reluctant to part with some of their top
minor-leaguers, fearing they'd need them down the stretch. As a
result, the U.S. roster is dotted with players currently toiling in
such places as Pawtucket, Mobile and Rochester.
"We would have liked to have had players like Mark McGwire,
Greg Maddux and Darryl Kile, but this is what was available to
us," said Bob Watson, co-chairman of the selection committee.
The U.S. team, managed by Dodgers executive Tommy Lasorda, will
be trying to upset two-time defending gold medalist Cuba. Japan,
which will feature some of its best pros on its team, and Korea,
which is suspending its pro season for two weeks during the
Olympics, also are among the favorites.
Host Australia will feature All-Star catcher Dave Nilsson, who
played in Japan this year so he would be available for Sydney.
Lasorda, a former Dodgers' manager and Hall of Famer, still has
high hopes.
"We aren't going 6,000 miles to lose," he said.
Twelve of the players on the roster have some major league
experience. Some of them were on the U.S. team that beat the Cubans
during the Pan Am Games last year but lost to them in the gold
medal game.
By finishing second, that team qualified the United States for
the Olympics.
"There are a few guys that I wish were there because I know
them and played with them last year," said Todd Williams, a
pitcher in the Seattle farm system who played in the Pan Am Games.
"But this committee has gone through so much to pick a team, I
don't think they were going to get anybody who wasn't capable of
doing the job. So I think the team we've got and the goal we have,
it should be easy to put a good team out there."
Outfielder Shawn Gilbert, who has spent some time in the majors
with Los Angeles and now is with their team at Albuquerque, knows
expectations are high for the United States.
"The other countries are definitely underrated, as far as their
play. But it's our national pastime, so we're expected to win, in
the eyes of our country," Gilbert said.
Asked if the Olympics' stringent drug-test policies might have
deterred some players from committing to play for the United
States, Bill Bavasi, co-chair of the selection committee, said he
didn't believe so, and that all the players had been made aware of
the Olympic policies.
Major League Baseball has no drug testing except for players who
have had substance-abuse problems.
The U.S. team, which opens the Olympic round-robin series
against Japan on Sept. 17, has a pitching staff that includes Ryan
Franklin, Chris George, Matt Ginter, Shane Heams, Rick Krivda, Roy
Oswalt, Jon Rauch, C.C. Sabathia, Bobby Seay, Ben Sheets, Williams,
Tim Young and Kurt Ainsworth.
In addition to Borders, the catchers will be Marcus Jensen and
Mike Kinkade.
Infielders on the 28-man roster are Brent Abernathy, Sean
Burroughs, Brent Butler, Mike Coolbaugh, Gookie Dawkins, Adam
Everett and Doug Mientkiewicz.
The outfielders are Gilbert, Anthony Sanders, Ernie Young, Brad
Wilkerson and Mike Neill.
One more player will be added to the roster, which will then be
cut to the 24-man limit by Sept. 15.
Watson doubts that the United States will ever field an Olympic
team with its best major-leaguers.
"I don't see anybody here giving up players to do that. Maybe
if they play the Olympics in the Southern Hemisphere in November,"
he said. "But if we win the gold medal with these guys, maybe that
won't be an issue."
The United States lost to Japan in the semifinals of the 1996
Olympics and also failed to win a medal in 1992.
|  | |
ALSO SEE
Raines cut from Olympic baseball team
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Tommy Lasorda is not going to Australia to lose.
wav: 194 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
|