King Kaufman's Sports Daily

For Jason Giambi, sorry means never having to say you're sorry. Plus: Did baseball superstars really used to stick with one team?

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Feb. 11, 2005 | Just want to say I'm sorry.

As you all know, there's been, you know, stuff that's gone on, and I'm sorry for it. I regret that it had to happen. I take full responsibility.

Sorry to all the fans and my readers and my family and everybody else. You know who you are.

Ongoing legal matters, and some illegal ones, prevent me from telling you exactly what it is I'm sorry for.

Naturally, I wish I could come a little more clean, or, well, poor choice of words there but I think you know what I mean. I wish I could really be honest and call a syringe a syringe, but that would involve putting myself at risk of having to actually take responsibility for the things I'm sitting here telling you I'm taking responsibility for, which are things I can't mention.

Gosh, this is like a weight off my shoulders, a monkey off my back.

I feel I let down the fans, I feel I let down the media, I feel I let down the Yankees, and not only the Yankees, but the Red Sox and the Cardinals and the Astros and UConn and Georgia Tech and the Lakers and Pistons and Patriots and Eagles and some of those hockey teams too.

And maybe even Lance Armstrong.

Maybe not Lance Armstrong.

But I hope everyone understands I'm not running away from my problems. That's what makes a man a man, to stand up to your troubles, face them, the way I'm standing up to, well, you know, that thing. Yessir, I'm standing tall and looking it right in the face and saying -- well, I'd rather not say what I'm saying.

I feel better already. Thanks. And sorry.

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Reggie the Oriole: Did big stars really used to stay put? [PERMALINK]

Last week, when I was waxing nostalgic, I wrote about seeing Reggie Jackson in a Baltimore Orioles uniform on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 1976. "It's hard to convey now how strange that was," I wrote, "to see a superstar in his prime change teams like that. It happened from time to time, but it was rare."

Reader Bill Cross argues that in baseball, "It is a myth that before free agency the best players spent most of their careers with the same team."

Cross writes that he's updating a study done in 1997 that found that the only group of players that showed any real difference in whether they changed teams or not were those who were "on the cusp of being Hall of Fame Caliber." Those borderliners changed teams during their careers a little over half the time before the advent of free agency and "essentially 100 percent of the time" since.

"The all-time greats, the greats, the goods and the long-time veterans showed no real difference between before and after free agency," Cross writes.

I agree. And also I disagree.

Next page: Players always moved around, but the great ones really did tend to pass their primes with one team