Chris Johnson said, “we were taking ground balls the very first day we were out there, and [Boone] said, ‘Hey why don’t you try this?’ He didn’t even know me. He spent a lot of time talking with me and working with me. I’m not thinking of myself right now. I’m worried about him.”
Link
Wednesday’s press conference, coupled with rumors regarding the possible signing of Pedro Martinez. The announcment of Aaron Boone’s departure from the team because of his heart condition was a surprise to the players as well.
“Everybody was assuming it was a player-personnel move, maybe a signing,” first baseman Lance Berkman said. “I didn’t know it was Aaron.” Link
“This is not a surprise [about the surgery] — we have known about it for the last 10 days,” (his dad) Bob said. “He has had defective heart valve. He was probably born with it. The doctors discovered it when he was actually in college. He goes to the cardiologist every year. It was, ‘You have this, no problem. You probably have to have it fixed, but you might be 50 years old.’
“The disappointing thing is that he called and said now is the time. Aaron has no symptoms of it whatsoever. It’s just that he has a leaky valve.” Link
The Astros knew all about it,
“As is common practice with every major league club, we had physicals conducted here prior to the players getting on the field for spring training,” Wade said. “Ours were conducted by Dr. Mike Link from the Osceola Regional Hospital here in Kissimmee. In the course of the examinations, Aaron mentioned that he’s had a heart issue that he’s been dealing with since he played at the University of Southern California.”
“It’s been monitored on a regular basis. After Aaron let us know about that, Dr. Link got together with Dr. Jim Muntz, one of our team physicians out of Methodist Hospital in Houston, and they decided to conduct some tests just to see where Aaron stood at that point in time. Unfortunately, the test results came out indicating there was an acceleration of the condition that Aaron has been dealing with for a number of years, which brings us to where we are today.” Link
Will he be able to play again?
“Initially, my doctors thought I could delay corrective surgery for some time, but because of some variations in my condition, they are now advising me to deal with the problem sooner rather than later. Am I going to recover well enough to play baseball again? Probably. Will I play baseball again? I don’t know at this time. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” Link
As for the Astros plans at 3rd,
“We haven’t looked at anything right now,” Wade said. “We’re not prepared to anoint any of the young guys as big leaguers right now. As I’ve said all winter long, we think — as we get down to the latter stages of Spring Training — there might be other players available.”
and in fact, Wade was quick to relate. “I got a call today (Wed.) from a club that’s got a guy that they want to make available if we have the need.” Link
Cooper’s opinion,
“Sometimes the infusion of youth is a good thing,” Cooper said. “We’ll keep running the kid out there and see how it goes. You have to give the kid every opportunity. This is our situation right now. I’m not saying that it’s not going to change.”
Footer writes
Moving Miguel Tejada from shortstop to third base does not appear, at this time, to be a realistic option. Link