by Roberta R. Umor, Fayetteville Observer

November 5, 2011: Fayetteville, NC — Can you believe what the Fayetteville Braggarts’ catcher Víctor Salgardo was saying about his team, his teammates and the entire New Orleans Trendsetters organization?  I couldn’t, and I was sitting across the table from the veteran player (and soon-to-be free agent) at the Doghouse Bar & Grill, one of many bars adjacent to the Fayetteville ballpark.  Thank heavens basketball reins supreme here in North Carolina, because most sports fans can ignore Salgardo’s angry outburst.

But when the hoopla is over for the hoopsters, baseball fans will crawl out of the woodwork and someone, somewhere is bound to notice that the Braggarts have a loose cannon with a big mouth.  At 29, Salgardo is a nine-year veteran whose contract expired at the end of the 2011 season.  He has no options left.

“They’re gonna cut me, I can feel it,” he said, meaning the Trendsetters front office, who hold Salgardo’s fate in their hands.  New Orleans acquired Salgardo along with pitcher Richard Thomas in March of 2011.  “But I played piss-poor ball for them,” he said, batting only .183 with a VORP of -4.9.  Then at the end of the season, he was reassigned to the Trendsetters’ AAA club here in Fayetteville.  He’s been hanging out at the local bars since, watching the PEBA championship series on TV and bemoaning his fate.

The writing is on the wall, and Salgardo knows it.  That’s why he’s angry.

“I wasn’t given a fair shake,” he says.  “I only played in 83 games, and then they send me to this dump,” he added, meaning Fayetteville, where the city motto is “Life, liberty and the pursuit of a scratch handicap”.  “No offense, but… I’m a major leaguer.  I don’t gotta take this.  I’m gonna show him!”

The “him” Salgardo refers to is the Trendsetters’ manager David Parks, who in a recent interview seemed to lay blame for the failure of pitcher Alberto Semblano on the 29-year-old catcher.  Parks questioned Salgardo’s pitch selection and implied that maybe the reason Semblano, who was part of a mid-season multi-player trade involving the San Antonio Calzones of Laredo and the Omaha Cyclones, suddenly blossomed for the Cyclones was that Salgardo had held him back.

“That’s bullpuckey!” Salgardo responded.

But two months after being traded, Semblano was the PEBA SL Pitcher of the Month in September.  What did the angry catcher have to say to that?

“Good for him.  ‘Bout time, too.  We all knew he could throw, but it sure as hell wasn’t me holding him back.  I only call the pitches he wants to throw.  Parks wouldn’t know a circle change if it hit him, and that’s Semblano’s out pitch.  I mean, if he suddenly spotted that pitch, that’d explain why he turned things ‘round like he did.  Didn’t have nothing to do with his catcher, I can tell you that.”

So what’s he planning to do to get Manager Parks’s attention?

“I dunno yet, but something.  You can count on it.  They ain’t gonna cut me just when us players is finally getting our own Topps baseball cards.  No way!”

We’re all waiting and watching and wondering what Víctor Salgardo has hidden inside the deep pocket of his catcher’s mitt.