Jorge Arangure Jr., ESPN - NOW IT'S PERSONAL; The two best baseball players ever from Colombia, Edgar Renteria and Orlando Cabrera, are engaged in a bitter feud and trading verbal attacks. It's going to be a long, hot summer in the AL Central.


In the tunnels of Detroit's Comerica Park, a clubhouse attendant, much like a carrier pigeon, delivers a message that will echo in a country thousands of miles away. It's a simple request for a meeting between two shortstops, intended to avoid a full-fledged controversy — a polémica, as they say in Colombia. The attendant enters the Tigers' clubhouse and finds Edgar Rentería. "Edgar," the clubbie says, "Orlando Cabrera says he would like to speak to you." But Rentería does not wish to speak to Cabrera, his counterpart on the White Sox, his fellow Colombian. The day before, Rentería explained why to a reporter: "I won't accept dealing with him. I think he's disrespected so many baseball people in Colombia who have been working to improve the sport. And that's not something I can accept, even with an apology from him."

Does any know what Orlando did. Didn't he carry a Columbian flag in the 2004 Victory Parade?

Have to ask Renteria I guess. There was also the mysterious getting rid of OCab after the '04 series win. I don't know if it ever came out what that was all about. We still have a sucky SS because of it.

I concur, there are tons of rumors surrounding the mysterious departure of O'Cab from the Sox, from partying to much, to alcohol abuse, to sleeping with minors, to smuggling whale ivory into the country.

Must have been the whale ivory. Man, the way he played in '04 after the Sox got him, including the postseason, I thought, we really have something here. And then, gone.

But, for all those rumors, didn't it really come down to:

1) Renteria was the best available player on the market at that position>

2) The Sox options were to set the market for free agent SS, or else wait for another big market team (Cardinals, Angels) to do so...and then get into a bidding war for whoever is left, with David Eckstein (a nice little player, but a distant 3rd among those three) as the possible consolation prize.

3) That being the case, you might as well just go after the best player available>

Maybe they didn't adequately do their homework on how Renteria might react to playing in the intense spotlight in Boston. But I don't remember hearing any of the Cabrera character issue rumors until after Renteria turned out to be a bust. Some of those rumors might fall under "where there's smoke, there's fire." I don't know. But not keeping him in Boston never seemed that complicated to me.

I don't know what this current thing is all about.

There must have been something else. It's the bird in the hand thing: OCab was performing well great, so why rock the boat/don't fix it if it ain't broke/don't break up a winning combination...and, there was flak about OCab being a bad actor in some way. I don't think I misremembered that. I never heard any problems about him in Anaheim, but why did they just move him? Guess they think Aybar is better.

It's easy to forget because, well, the Sox were winning the World Series and OCab got a few base knocks, but IIRC, he only OPS'd around .700 while playing good D. That's a decent enough performance on a team that was stacked with All-Star type hitters at literally every other position, but it's not what I would call great by any means.

I see an OPS of .785 in the part of the regular season he spent with the Red Sox in '04. He was a lot better vs. the Yankees and not so good against the Angels and Cards. His defense was, if not great, very good. Maybe he seemed great compared with the three guys we've had patrolling SS since he left.

Yeah, I was going to add that I think OCab gets some very positive nostalgia because of the shortstop carousel since then.

it looks like OC's not getting along with Ozzie Guillen either.