Moneyball, meet Funnyball.
Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane might have thought he had won the day at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline with his splashy pickup of Red Sox ace Jon Lester … until he received this cheeky text-message taunt from Tigers counterpart Dave Dombrowski, according to MLB.com:
“You have 1 minute to acquire Chris Sale.”
That’s because Dombrowski had just one-upped Beane by landing Rays ace David Price to move atop an absolutely stacked Tigers rotation. The smack-talk moral: Beane’s only response in this Oakland-Detroit arms race would be to maneuver for Sale, the star White Sox lefty.
The back-and-forth between GMs — one the subject of a Hollywood drama, the other perhaps auditioning for a comedic vehicle — was just one scene from a madcap deadline day that had plenty of cinematic moments.
Tigers center fielder Austin Jackson was pulled from center field in the middle of an at-bat during their afternoon game once the Price deal was struck. The Motown crowd, sensing Jackson was leaving town in a trade, gave him a long, heart-warming standing ovation as he made his exit.
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Dombrowski, having a busy iPhone day, was eager to get Jackson to safety before a freak injury scuttle his blockbuster.
“Dave was right there in the dugout,” Tigers righty Max Scherzer said, according to CBS Detroit. “He’s on the phone with [MLB], and he’s screaming, ‘You’ve gotta get Austin off the field!’”
And Beane wasn’t weighing Oakland’s promotional schedule when he packaged slugger Yoenis Cespedes to Boston to nab Lester — the A’s planned to give away Cespedes T-shirts at their home game on Saturday night. The cost-conscious A’s, not a franchise to let much to go to waste, will give out 10,000 of these outdated beauties anyway.
Update: Apparently there was still some light taunting, but the sender and receiver were mixed up. According to the Oakland Press, Beane sent the message to Dombrowski, saying, “And you only gave me a minute to try and get Chris Sale. I’m not surprised. You know how to make the big deal. Well done.”
Still, pretty fun.