Second base is Washington's first concern
2B or not 2B, that is the question.
Yes, yes, things are so very Shakespeare in Washington, D.C., these days. Shakespeare or vanity plate, tough to say anymore. A month out from spring training and the Nationals still have too many second basemen and not enough answers.
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| Alfonso Soriano doesn't want to play outfield. (Getty Images) |
Meantime, the Nationals haven't even brushed all of the packing peanuts off of four-time All-Star Alfonso Soriano, acquired in a deal with Texas in December, and yet he keeps telling interviewers this winter that he has zero interest in moving from second base to the outfield. It's like he's a windup toy programmed for a one-track answer.
Second base, second base, second base. I'm not moving to the outfield. Second base, I tell you!
"We've talked to him once," Nationals general manager Jim Bowden said Monday from the team's spring training headquarters in Melbourne, Fla. "Unfortunately, this whole situation is not easy. It's very difficult.
"We didn't talk to him initially because the trade was contingent on Brad Wilkerson passing his physical, so there was like a three-day span where talking with him would have been tampering."
So reporters got to Soriano first and gave him the scoop: 'Fons, they've got Vidro -- they want you to play the outfield.'
"His feelings were hurt," Bowden acknowledged. "It's tough, because he's a (four-) time All-Star. We respect him. We know he can play second base, center field, left field.
"But the most important thing is the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back of the jersey."
If they can't broker a peace agreement, Bowden says he will be open to trading Soriano.
That, though, is not exactly Option A. Or Option B, C or D.
With Soriano's bat in the lineup, it's like taking the Nationals offense from Windows '98 to Windows 2006 (note to computer geeks: Relax, that's just a figure of speech.)
