Make up your mind Jake!

Yesterday I arrived at work around 11:15 a.m. and soon found out about the fast-moving Jake Peavy story. My occupation/job title has recently changed from student to sports radio intern, so yesterday my job was to write the sports updates and especially monitor the "Jake Peavy to the White Sox" rumors. Not a bad task. As I researched stories from different media outlets and refreshed web pages for updates, I learned a lot about the possible trade that would've sent the Padres ace to the South Side of Chicago. After gathering all of this somewhat important knowledge, I thought to myself how confused I am with Jake Peavy's ever-changing desires on where he wants to play baseball.

Until last year, when the Padres finished 63-99, the city of San Diego had a pretty good baseball team. The years 2005 and 2006 saw back-to-back division titles for the Padres and in 2007, despite an 89-73 record, the Padres just missed the postseason. Mr. Peavy actually won the Cy Young Award that year as well. But since then, the Padres have lost marquee players and the overall quality of their team has drastically decreased. Naturally, with failure comes desire for change, so in the 2008 offseason, Peavy wanted out of Southern California...or did he? My team, the Chicago Cubs, and the Atlanta Braves both made huge pushes to land the All-Star pitcher, but those attempts failed just before the season started. During the first portion of this season, there have been a few rumblings about Peavy possibly getting moved to here or there, but nothing ever came of it. So what is happening in these meetings that prevent these deals from getting done if Peavy is so adamant about gettng traded? Don't know, but I thought yesterday might have been the end...

Out of the blue, White Sox GM Kenny Williams (one of the better miracle workers in the league in terms of pulling off deals) looked like he had done it again. It wasn't a rumor this time around. As a matter of fact, a deal was agreed upon and completely put in place by both sides...the only thing was that Jake Peavy had the final say because of a no-trade clause in his contract. Uhh...Oh!

Before I reveal his decision, let's go back to what I learned after researching all of the stories at work. Jake Peavy goes hunting regularly in central Illinois with his buddy, Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt. He recently took in a Blackhawks playoff game from the front row with a irremovable smile. He has professed his love for the city of Chicago in interviews before. He's part of a Padres roster that, in my opinion (and probably his too), is one of the worst collections of baseball players the league has seen in awhile (Ok, maybe the Nationals are more pathetic). So of course he's going to say yes to the White Sox deal, right? Apppparrentlyyy not.

He said that he really prefers to play in the National League and he also cited his love for Southern California as a reason why he declined the move to the South Side. The National League thing kind of makes sense, but his desires to play for a contender were the same in the offseason when a few National League teams were willing to do anything to get him. And Jake, I know you love SoCal, but you've got very few options outside of the uninterested Dodgers, so you're probably going to end up somewhere else anyway.

The whole situation is very confusing to me. There are certainly a lot of factors that play into it: timing, place, money, whether the team is a contender, etc. I just don't get why one day he says he wants the hell out of San Diego and the next day he says he doesn't want to leave the area, even if a team from a city that he said he would love to play in offers him a deal. This dude has some conflicting thoughts and desires and yesterday during my research I found out the extent of his confusion.

If you ask me, I think he'll still be out of a Padres uniform around the All-Star break when teams start to make their playoff push. But it's just funny how much Jake Peavy confuses me and probably a lot of other sports people out there. I'll tell you...that would have been a HUGE pickup for the Sox, too. Floyd and Danks have been sooo disappointing this year and as much as Peavy doesn't want to go the AL, I think he would've done a lot of good on the South Side.