Zimmer

On January 31, 2004, I played in a softball tournament sponsored by John Hancock. In addition to John Hancock employees and business associates, numerous past and present pro baseball players, including "Mudcat" Grant, George Foster, John Stearns, Don Zimmer, Jim Fregosi and AJ Pierzynski, participated in this tournament (ESPN's Brian Kenny was on hand to do the play-by-play). Prior to the start of the tourney, I had the opportunity to eat lunch with the legendary Zimmer. Zimmer commented on the "evil agents that are destroying baseball", his new position with Tampa Bay which enables him to spend more time with his wife, his past involvement with almost every team in professional baseball and his soon-to-be-released book (no, I didn't ask him about the Pedro incident). In response to my question about his relationship with George Steinbrenner, he replied: "George would never fxck with me".