DUNEDIN, Fla. — Vernon Wells didn’t have much of a season last year, but he managed to provide one of the wittier quotes.
After a bad day at the plate where the Rogers Centre fans were giving him the raspberry he said of their reaction: “The fans have given me a new nickname, Boo.”
The bad news to a growing legion of disgruntled Blue Jays fans is that good ol’ Boo Wells is back for more in 2010.
Boo, 31, has not had a productive season since 2006 when he hit .303 with 32 homers and 106 RBIs. The past three seasons have been punctuated by injuries — shoulder woes in 2007, a broken wrist in ’08 and more wrist issues last year.
Wells kept silent about his wrist issues last year until after the season when he underwent minor surgery. That still didn’t quiet his critics who pointed to his .260 average, 15 homers and 66 RBIs and decried his deteriorating skill set.
Then there’s the issue of his contract. Wells is in the third year of a seven-year pact that overall is worth $126 million US. This year, he will receive $21 million. In 2011, he will earn $23 million and the following three seasons, $21 million per year. That’s a lot of loot. It’s also become something of a millstone hanging around the neck of both the Jays and Wells.
When a ranking of the worst contracts in baseball is made, Wells’ name is usually found at the top of people’s list.
Ol’ Boo, at least outwardly, takes it all in stride. There’s nothing he can do about the numbers on the contract and he’s not about to tear it up and ask for a pay cut.
“The market is what it was and, even when I signed the deal, they asked me if I was worth that kind of money and I said: ‘I’m not.’ It’s just what the market was,” he said of the hefty pact. “I’m never really going to be good enough to say that that contract’s worth anything. But it really doesn’t matter what I do. I can go out and hit .320 and hit 30 home runs and drive in 100 runs and I still did something wrong. That’s the nature of it.
“But I don’t think about the money. It’s the game that we play. If you play well and play well at the right time you’re going to make money. Every day you try to go out and prove that you’re worth that and some days are better than others.”
Given all that he has endured the past three seasons — the criticism, the injuries — you’d think that Wells would have soured slightly on the game. But that’s not the case.
“I always have fun,” he said. “I’m blessed to be able to put on a uniform every day and good or bad, I enjoy it. I’ll always be that way because this is a game. You do every- thing you can to succeed. You’re not always going to have all the positive outcomes from it. It’s just how you deal with the negatives and how you respond to them will determine what kind of person you are.”
If he doesn’t produce in 2010 and the fans stay on his case, then so be it.
“I don’t think there’s anything that can be thrown at me that I can’t handle,” he said. “It is what it is and you live through it and you get better from it.”
mike.rutsey@sunmedia.ca
