In today's Sun, give Mike Rutsey credit for sticking to the facts in this conversation with J.P. Ricciardi about the Oakland connection common to so many Jays deals, and his friendship with former mentor Billy Beane.
Best things about this piece? It might keep the lead witch-hunters from writing something similar for a while, and the great closing JPR quote:
"It's not easy to deal with 29 people," he said of the other GMs. "It's my job to be as creative, open-minded and aggressive as I can be. But there's just some clubs where even if its a layup for them, they're not going to make the deal.
"The bottom line is it's easier to deal with people who want to make deals. I've had as many discussions with Kansas City and the Mets and people like that as I've had with Billy, but we're just not able to get things done with those teams."
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20030109114608999