See Reference28/03/03

Venezuela coach Richard Paez is shrugging off the short timeframe for their U.S. friendly in Seattle to pin some hopes on his world #69-ranked side.

The perennial CONMEBOL also-rans, who have been touted as one of the most improved teams in the hemisphere, are standing in for Japan with a week to prepare.   "I'm optimistic because I believe in my boys, their ability and skill, despite the late notice,” Paez declared. "Our goal is to test ourselves and see if Venezuela has the confidence to play at the world level.”

”It's essential that we play friendlies with teams that have Fifa's best rankings.”

The two nations last met on the pitch in the 1993 Copa America with Venezuela rallying from 3-0 down for a draw.

See Source By JOHN BRANCH March 27, 2003

This has to be No. 7, at least. Maybe eight.

But the Big Cat, Andres Galarraga, will live at least one more life with the San Francisco Giants.

When the Giants on Wednesday relegated first baseman Damon Minor to Fresno to start the season, Galarraga - signed to a minor-league contract in January - was left with an apparent spot on San Francisco's Opening Day roster.

He'll serve as a backup first baseman, a big right-handed bat off the bench and - most importantly, perhaps - the feel-good vibe of the clubhouse.

Go ahead and root for Barry Bonds to finally win the World Series. Rationalize that he somehow deserves it.

Root harder for Andres Galarraga to simply play in one. He deserves it more.

There is a place for nice guys. And San Francisco is it, for now.

"I think a lot of people will remember me for being a nice guy," Galarraga says when asked about his likely legacy. "I like that."

No higher calling. Just "nice guy." If only every big-leaguer and professional athlete could aspire to such a lofty post-career epithet.

Galarraga is one of baseball's few true ambassadors, the kind of player who makes fans stand up and cheer for doing nothing but showing up. That's because everything he does - hitting home runs, backhanding a hard grounder, chatting with fans or reporters - is accompanied by the sport's biggest smile.

It's such a simple formula. Makes you wonder why more athletes don't try it.

"He is a lot of fun," says infielder Neifi Perez, who spent a couple of seasons with Galarraga in Colorado. "He's a great teammate. And if he stays like this, he'll play 'til he's 60."

Galarraga turns 42 in June. He's hoping for that elusive Series and another 14 home runs. That would make him the 35th player to reach 400. He'd pass - ho-hum - Johnny Bench, Graig Nettles, Joe Carter, Dale Murphy and Al Kaline along the way.

It's not just that he's one of those players who forever will sit at the Hall of Fame's doorstep, just outside immortality. And it's not just that he smiles through everything life has thrown him.

It's that he has been dismissed so many times. Every time he seems to disappear, he emerges again, filled with new life.

Galarraga was an overweight teenager from Caracas, Venezuela, signed by the Montreal Expos in 1979 on the advice of Felipe Alou, then a minor-league manager. Now Alou is San Francisco's manager and the man keeping Galarraga's career going nearly 25 years after the two first met.

"I knew he'd be a player," Alou says. "But I didn't know he would be a player for this long."

No one did. Galarraga spent nearly seven seasons in the minors. But he emerged as one of baseball's best hitters in the late 1980s, then fizzled hard in 1991.

The Expos gave up, traded him to St. Louis. That's where he found hitting coach Don Baylor, who revamped Galarraga's swing and drastically opened his stance.

In 1993, with Baylor managing the expansion Rockies and Galarraga signed as a free agent, Galarraga hit .370. He later led the league in home runs and RBI. He became the heart of Colorado's Blake Street Bombers, second only to John Elway in the Denver sports hierarchy.

Eventually, Colorado couldn't afford him. Galarraga signed with Atlanta in 1998, hitting .305 with 44 home runs and 121 RBI as if to prove he didn't need thin air to excel.

The next spring, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

He somehow smiled through the announcement. He vowed to return. And then he disappeared to spend a summer receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

"When I had the cancer, the doctors said they had medicine," Galarraga says. "I said I not only want to stay alive, I want to play baseball."

So he did. He hit .302 with 28 home runs and 100 RBI in 2000. He was the comeback player of the year.

He's a lot grayer and a little heavier now, not as agile as he was when former Expos player Bob Bailey dubbed him the Big Cat nearly 20 years ago. The past two years have taken him to Texas and San Francisco and Montreal and back, now, to San Francisco. The years have turned him into a backup and a clubhouse leader.

"He still has some juice left in his bat," Alou says.

The Big Cat is unsure how many baseball lives he has left. He doesn't think about it.

"I just want to help my teammates stay up," he says. "That's why I'm smiling all the time - to tell my teammates that this is a special game."

It's special because of people like him. Root for him.

• E-mail John Branch at jbranch(at)fresnobee.com. (Distributed by Scripps-McClatchy Western Service, www.shns.com.)

Read By John Branch The Fresno Bee (Published Thursday, March 27, 2003, 11:59 AM)

Andres Galarraga has become a clubhouse sage as he nears his 42nd birthday, but the veteran first baseman will make San Francisco's roster for more than that. "He still has some juice left in his bat," Giants manager Felipe Alou says. (Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee)This has to be No. 7, at least. Maybe eight.

But the Big Cat, Andres Galarraga, will live at least one more life with the San Francisco Giants.

When the Giants on Wednesday relegated first baseman Damon Minor to Fresno to start the season, Galarraga -- signed to a minor-league contract in January -- was left with an apparent spot on San Francisco's Opening Day roster.

He'll serve as a backup first baseman, a big right-handed bat off the bench and -- most importantly, perhaps -- the feel-good vibe of the clubhouse.

Go ahead and root for Barry Bonds to finally win the World Series. Rationalize that he somehow deserves it.

Root harder for Andres Galarraga to simply play in one. He deserves it more.

There is a place for nice guys. And San Francisco is it, for now.

"I think a lot of people will remember me for being a nice guy," Galarraga says when asked about his likely legacy. "I like that."

No higher calling. Just "nice guy." If only every big-leaguer and professional athlete could aspire to such a lofty post-career epithet.

Maybe that's why Galarraga received the biggest ovation when the Giants (a disappointing number of them) came to Grizzlies Stadium for an exhibition with their Triple-A affiliate.

Galarraga is one of baseball's few true ambassadors, the kind of player who makes fans stand up and cheer for doing nothing but showing up. That's because everything he does -- hitting home runs, backhanding a hard grounder, chatting with fans or reporters -- is accompanied by the sport's biggest smile.

It's such a simple formula. Makes you wonder why more athletes don't try it.

"He is a lot of fun," says infielder Neifi Perez, who spent a couple of seasons with Galarraga in Colorado. "He's a great teammate. And if he stays like this, he'll play 'til he's 60."

Galarraga turns 42 in June. He's hoping for that elusive Series and another 14 home runs. That would make him the 35th player to reach 400. He'd pass -- ho-hum -- Johnny Bench, Graig Nettles, Joe Carter, Dale Murphy and Al Kaline along the way.

It's not just that he's one of those players who forever will sit at the Hall of Fame's doorstep, just outside immortality. And it's not just that he smiles through everything life has thrown him.

It's that he has been dismissed so many times. Every time he seems to disappear, he emerges again, filled with new life.

Galarraga was an overweight teenager from Caracas, Venezuela, signed by the Montreal Expos in 1979 on the advice of Felipe Alou, then a minor-league manager. Now Alou is San Francisco's manager and the man keeping Galarraga's career going nearly 25 years after the two first met.

"I knew he'd be a player," Alou says. "But I didn't know he would be a player for this long."

No one did. Galarraga spent nearly seven seasons in the minors. But he emerged as one of baseball's best hitters in the late 1980s, then fizzled hard in 1991.

The Expos gave up, traded him to St. Louis. That's where he found hitting coach Don Baylor, who revamped Galarraga's swing and drastically opened his stance.

In 1993, with Baylor managing the expansion Rockies and Galarraga signed as a free agent, Galarraga hit .370. He later led the league in home runs and RBI. He became the heart of Colorado's Blake Street Bombers, second only to John Elway in the Denver sports hierarchy.

Eventually, Colorado couldn't afford him. Galarraga signed with Atlanta in 1998, hitting .305 with 44 home runs and 121 RBI as if to prove he didn't need thin air to excel.

The next spring, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

He somehow smiled through the announcement. He vowed to return. And then he disappeared to spend a summer receiving chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

"When I had the cancer, the doctors said they had medicine," Galarraga says. "I said I not only want to stay alive, I want to play baseball."

So he did. He hit .302 with 28 home runs and 100 RBI in 2000. He was the comeback player of the year.

He's a lot grayer and a little heavier now, not as agile as he was when former Expos player Bob Bailey dubbed him the Big Cat nearly 20 years ago. The past two years have taken him to Texas and San Francisco and Montreal and back, now, to San Francisco. The years have turned him into a backup and a clubhouse leader.

"He still has some juice left in his bat," Alou says.

The Big Cat is unsure how many baseball lives he has left. He doesn't think about it.

"I just want to help my teammates stay up," he says. "That's why I'm smiling all the time -- to tell my teammates that this is a special game."

It's special because of people like him. Root for him.

The columnist can be reached at jbranch@fresnobee.com or 441-6217.

URL By Jim Cour Associated Press

PEORIA, Ariz. - Seattle Mariners shortstop Carlos Guillen may never put up the gaudy offensive numbers of the top players at the position, Alex Rodriguez, Miguel Tejada, Nomar Garciaparra or Derek Jeter.

But Guillen, 27, is doing exactly what the Mariners want from him - playing solid defense.

"He's got better range than I thought he had and he has very, very good hands," rookie Mariners manager Bob Melvin said Monday.

Third-base coach Dave Myers, who works with the Mariners' infielders, points out that Guillen fits perfectly into the team's philosophy of pitching and defense first. Guillen and second baseman Bret Boone form a top double-play combination.

"Until he hits 50 homers, he probably won't be mentioned in the same breath with the other guys," Myers said. "But we're not asking him to do something that he's not capable of."

Acquired in a trade for Randy Johnson with the Houston Astros along with pitchers Freddy Garcia and John Halama in July 1998, Guillen has had to follow in the gigantic shoes of Rodriguez in Seattle.

After Rodriguez left the Mariners as a free agent and signed baseball's record $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers following the 2000 season, Guillen became the Mariners' starting shortstop.

In January, the Mariners gave Guillen a $2.5 million, one-year contract. On April 1 in Oakland, he is scheduled to be Seattle's opening night shortstop for the third season in a row.

"I feel like this year is going to be my year," Guillen said. "I've got more experience, I'm healthy and I'm more comfortable with myself. I know more about the pitchers in the league and the way they pitch."

Staying healthy has been a problem for Guillen, who has suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee and pulled his left hamstring since joining the Mariners.

At the end of the 2001 season, when the Mariners tied the major league record with 116 victories and reached the AL championship series, he was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. He got into one game of the AL division series and had eight at bats in the ALCS.

Last season, Guillen posted career highs in nearly all offensive categories: batting average (.261), hits (124), home runs (nine), RBI (56) and runs scored (73). But he played in only 134 of Seattle's 162 games, missing games with a strained left ring finger, bruised hand and a strained left thigh muscle.

"I would like to be healthy and play every day," Guillen said. "I think that would be a good season."

Rodriguez, the ex-Mariners All-Star shortstop, led baseball with 57 homers and 142 RBI last season, while Tejada had 34 homers.

A switch-hitter, Guillen acknowledges he will never have those kinds of power numbers because he's more of a line-drive, hit-it-to-all-fields-type hitter. But he would like to be considered in the same class with Rodriguez, Tejada, Jeter and Garciaparra some day.

"I would like to be part of this group," Guillen said. "I feel I can do it. I don't talk too much. I just do my job on the field. But I feel like someday I can be with those guys."

Defensively, Guillen already is, the Mariners believe.

"I think he's on an equal par," Myers said. "I think you throw Carlos in with those four guys and he's very comparable with them. He's having an excellent spring defensively. He's moved laterally very well. He's thrown extremely accurately and he's taken charge in the infield."

Melvin, former bench coach of the Arizona Diamondbacks, didn't know much about Guillen until this spring. He underestimated the quiet infielder from Aragua, Venezuela.

"I wasn't really sure if he was a true shortstop, but he definitely is," Melvin said. "He impresses me defensively."

Guillen agreed to an interview in the Mariners' locker room Monday on the condition that the questions did not include anything about his being arrested by police in Clyde Hill, a suburb of Seattle, last year.

He was stopped by police for driving 89 mph in a zone with a 60 mph limit and then had a .093 percent reading on a portable breath test. The legal intoxication threshold in Washington state is .08.

Guillen pleaded guilty to negligent driving after prosecutors agreed to drop a drunken driving charge against him. He was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service.

<a href=www.sun-sentinel.com>URL Published March 27, 2003

PHOENIX -- Francisco Rodriguez stands tall, tucks his glove over his heart, looks in for the sign and prepares to make his pitch.

Only that's not a baseball in his right hand, it's a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. And this isn't the pitcher's mound at Edison International Field but a cavernous sound studio of high wood beams and cold concrete floors.

A hard midafternoon rain is falling outside, but the man-child who helped pitch the Anaheim Angels to their first World Series title can't hope for a rainout to spring him from this assignment.

K-Rod is stuck here for the next four hours shilling for a soft-drink company that is paying him handsomely for the right to slap his image on cans and cardboard cutouts from Southern California to his native Caracas, Venezuela.

This is just one of the endorsement deals Rodriguez, 21, has signed in the wake of his staggering rise to prominence last October. There's also a two-year contract with Nike, and his marketing representative, Scott Becher of Miami Beach-based Sports & Sponsorships, is still sifting through numerous other offers.

"His appeal is so special for somebody his age," Becher says during a break. "Frankie has the poise of a veteran. He's very comfortable with himself."

On the field, that much is obvious. Here, however, nothing comes naturally, especially with his two young daughters crying in the next room, but K-Rod gamely fights on.

He stands before a bright green background, clutches the big bottle of fizz, turns on his megawatt smile and tries to concentrate. Speaking in Spanish, he repeatedly invites potential viewers to "look for the Pepsi promotion at a store near you."

Three takes go by, then six, then a dozen. The kid who turned the World Series on its ear is growing frustrated.

"Lots of excitement, K-Rod," the director says. "Big smile, now. This is exciting!"

Finally, on Take No. 19, everybody is happy. Rodriguez then moves on to the English-language spot and nails it in two takes.

Ninety minutes of still photos follow.

"That was boring, man," Rodriguez says a few days later at Angels camp. "It was, `Stand up, do this, do that, go over here, stand right there, put your arm like this. Smile, don't smile.' Damn."

Endorsement work may bore K-Rod, but he is nothing short of fascinating when it comes to his primary profession. As compelling as Rodriguez's story was last season, when he began the year at Double-A Arkansas and wound up blowing away Barry Bonds on the sport's ultimate stage, he bears even greater attention now.

He remains a rookie, for starters, thanks to the technicality that landed him on the postseason roster with just two weeks of big-league experience. What's more, the baseball world will be watching to see if this former bonus baby with the high-90s fastball can keep his roll going or if he'll fade into the pack.

No one with the Angels is expecting any backsliding.

"He's got things in the proper perspective," Angels General Manager Bill Stoneman says. "He understands you've got to prove yourself. He's more mature than his age. That's what we've got here."

Rodriguez spent the winter in his troubled Venezuela but didn't go out much for fear of being robbed or worse. The political strife kept him from seeing his fiancee, Andrea Harvey, or their two daughters for more than one week all winter, but their bond is clear on that rainy afternoon in Phoenix.

When Rodriguez is able to break away between sessions, 2-year-old Adriana runs up to her Papi with a hug. Destiny, born last May while her daddy was pitching in Little Rock, watches the proceedings intently between afternoon feedings.

"It's kind of funny how everybody wants to do something with him now," Harvey says. "A year ago, they could care less."

They met three years ago at minor league spring training but didn't start dating until he was pitching during the 2000 season for Class A Lake Elsinore in the California desert. Harvey, the daughter of a Southern California police officer, was best friends with the wife of Rodriguez's roommate, Nelson Castro, but it wasn't love at first sight.

"I knew [Rodriguez] was young, and I knew he had signed for something [$950,000] because he was kind of, like, macho and driving around in his white Mustang convertible," she says, smiling. "He had his friends in the back and he was just screeching all over the place. I just thought he was some young kid that was just, like, a troublemaker, really."

A double date at a dance club helped change that perception, and soon they became inseparable, the cop's little girl and the baseball prodigy from Venezuela.

"He used to tell me all the time he was going to send me to jail," says Harvey, who at 23 is two years older. "I told him, `You're over 18.'"

He helped her learn Spanish, which she speaks constantly to their daughters. She helped him with his English, which he has picked up remarkably well, although he remains self-conscious, especially around strangers.

"He knows perfect [English]," she says. "Sometimes he doesn't think he knows something and he doesn't want people to laugh at him. He doesn't want to be embarrassed."

When the Angels were having trouble reaching Rodriguez during the offseason, they went through Harvey. She would track him down through friends or family and could relay messages back to the Angels, often within an hour or two.

When visas were scarce, there was talk of using a Canadian work visa or sending Rodriguez through the Dominican Republic on his way to spring training. Eventually he was able to land on these shores the conventional way, thanks to Harvey letting him know he needed to get to the U.S. embassy in Caracas.

She's a good influence on him, everybody says. Helps keep him grounded. Helps keep the K-Rod part of his personality from forcing plain old Francisco clear out of the picture.

"It's been kind of crazy for both of us," she says. "I'm not used to being in the spotlight. It's funny, you'll see people that didn't want to go to his games when he was in the minor leagues. Now, all of a sudden, he's such a good guy and they want to go see him."

Nobody's laughing at K-Rod now.

Mike Berardino can be reached at mberardino@sun-sentinel.com.