Orioles center fielder Adam Jones went to former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz's charity golf tournament this weekend. Fortunately, MLB.com and Boston media did, too.
While Orioles fans warmed themselves by the hot stove, compulsively refreshing Twitter for Mark Trumbo news like an addict looking for a fix, Jones talked Friday to reporters about the important stuff: reliving the Ubaldo Jimenez-as-reliever nightmare, his offseason chores and why giving a bullpen phone maybe isn't a great retirement gift.
First, the Orioles' Brexit. What were you thinking, Adam, when it's the 11th inning in the American League wild-card game and Zach Britton still hasn't been used?
"I'm in center field and look to my left, I see him warming up," Jones told MLB.com. "He throws one pitch, so it doesn't take long for him to warm up. It was like, 'All right, is he coming? Is he coming? Is he coming?' We bring in [Ubaldo Jimenez] and he gives up a hit and an error.
"So first and third now. I'm sitting there, like, 'Is he coming? Is he coming?' He didn't, and the first pitch to [Edwin] Encarnacion, obviously, he hit it out, and I just looked at the trajectory, but there's no need to follow the ball. And I just walked right off."
Jones could understand the decision-making by manager Buck Showalter, to whom he is very close. Still, Jones said, Showalter "mentally hurt himself."
"I can see both sides of it. He's our closer. When you're on the road, I think you wait to get that lead and then bring your closer in," Jones said. "But sometimes with a closer like ours, a unique closer like ours, he can go out and throw two or three innings. Me, personally, I would have thrown him out there and let him go because he brings energy, too. He just doesn't go out and throw a 98-mph bowling ball. He brings energy to the dugout and the field."
Jones said he's spoken with Showalter several times this offseason, just not about that fateful play. Probably because he's busy recapping his yard work.
With Showalter spending part of his offseason in Dallas, there's chores to be done around his Baltimore-area home. Who else but Jones?
"I make sure that everything is good," Jones told MLB.com. "I make sure to mow his lawn a couple of times in the offseason in Baltimore.
"You'll see me and my boy, I take my dog over there and mow his 10 acres. Sit on the John Deere. I know lawns. It's become more than just a business relationship."
Speaking of which, do you know who doesn't have a good relationship? Ortiz and the Orioles. For his retirement gift, the Orioles presented him with the smashed-up dugout phone he took a bat to in 2013. They also donated $10,000 to the World Pediatric Project, which helps critically ill children in the Dominican Republic.
Jones told the Boston Herald that he didn't like the club's idea of a going-away present. Ortiz appreciated it even less. "I think we could have done a little bit more," Jones said. "When I got to him, he had some choice words.
"If it was anybody else [handing it to him], I think he would've just been like, 'I'm leaving this, OK?' But personally, I wanted to do something better. I think it was last minute."