Braves’ Phillips happy to be traded back home
Brandon Phillips was struck by the oddity of being traded to a team that includes 43-yearold pitcher Bartolo Colon.
“It’s crazy being on he same team with the guy I got traded for,” the new Atlanta Braves second baseman said Friday after his first spring training workout. “I think we’re the only two players who played with the Expos that are still playing now.”
Actually Phillips, now 35, never made it up to the Montreal Expos, who became the Washington Nationals in 2005. On June 7, 2002, the Expos traded Phillips, Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee and Lee Stevens to Cleveland for Colon and Tim Drew.
“I was mad,” Phillips recalled. “I was leaving my friends. I had a lot of friends going back to ’99 and going through the minor league system with the Expos. But me, Sizemore, Cliff Lee — we were all close, and it was like: ‘OK, we can go to the Indians and see what happens.”’
Colon and Lee won Cy Young Awards and Sizemore became a star briefly with the Indians. Phillips was traded four years later to Cincinnati, where he became a four-time All-Star. The rebuilding Reds dealt him to Atlanta last weekend.
“It took some work, but the Braves worked with me and we got it done,” Phillips said. “I wanted it to happen a long time ago, but things happen from different sides and I never thought it would happen.”
Phillips is a 1999 graduate of Redan High School in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
Ex-Buckeye Swisher says he has retired
At spring training with the New York Yankees as a guest instructor, Nick Swisher says he has retired as a player.
Swisher, a former Ohio State player, issued a statement Friday on The Players Tribune.
Slowed by knee injuries the past several years, Swisher appeared in 76 games with Atlanta and Cleveland in 2014. The 36-year old slugger played in 55 games last season for the Yankees’ Triple-A Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre team, then ended his season in July when his second child was born.
Plenty of interest in Marlins, official says
Multiple groups are interested in purchasing the Miami Marlins, according to team president David Samson, who confirmed owner Jeffrey Loria is being considered for nomination as U.S. ambassador to France.
That process, though, apparently has halted talks of a potential sale — at least temporarily.
A group led by Joshua Kushner, whose brother Jared Kushner is married to President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka, led a group that had a preliminary agreement to buy the Marlins for about $1.6 billion.
The Kushner family released a statement Thursday that it would not pursue the Marlins if Loria is nominated.
Dodgers’ Gonzalez takes hitting break
Adrian Gonzalez is taking a two-week break from hitting to heal tendinitis in the Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman’s right elbow.
Gonzalez still hopes to play for Mexico in the World Baseball Classic next month, he said Friday after reporting to camp.
Gonzalez said he pursued his usual varied offseason workout program, including weightlifting and boxing exercises. It left him with a case of tennis elbow, or inflammation on the outside of the elbow after forearm tendons are overused.
McCutchen calls move to right difficult
Andrew McCutchen began what could be his final spring training with the Pittsburgh Pirates by moving to a new position.
In late January, team management decided to move two-time Gold Glove winner Starling Marte from left field to center. McCutchen was switched to right field, a position he has never played in his professional career.
“It’s difficult because I still feel like I can play,” McCutchen said of center field before the Pirates’ first full-squad spring training workout on Friday.