How to see the Prince Fielder press conference

Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince, Prince…and so on

No CC, won’t be able to watch during lecture

I cannot handle watching even 30 seconds of Blue Ice – Michigan Hockey.

Thank god I have MLB

with help from Dombrowski and Ilitch handing him a hat

I’d just like to mention, we were taling a few minutes ago in the cigar room, I was mentiong to people who I was with that at the old ballpark, Cecil, after Tiger games, would come up to the box and he’d bring me food and we’d sit down and just talk about Prince. Prince is going to do this and Prince is going to do that. I said to myself, just a typical father bragging about one of his kids.

…

So after he started putting it in the upper deck, I told him don’t you come upstaris any more, you don’t have to tell me any more about it.

He was marked to be a major league baseball player

I want to say thank you first of all to my wife. I want to say thank you to Mr Ilitch and the Ilitch family. This is a dream come true. I’m excited. I want to thank Scott (Boras). This is my man right here. I messed up his hair earlier.

I’m just excited to be here. I can’t wait to get it going

prince; It’s awesome. I dont know what to say. I just never thought this could happen and it’s happened now. It’s an awesome moment. I’m glad I get to be here with my family and one of my sons up here. it’s a real special day

Ilitch: Well, it came about when Martinez got injured, and we sat down Dave and I and some of the other key people in the organization abotu how we’re going to handle this. I got a little dizzy because this person would move here adn this person would move there, we got raburn here, to fill in for this one, for that one. I got thinking, they’re all going to have pressure on them to be able to mach that 320 batting average and 100 rbis, and we’re going to feel pressure filling that slot. I don’t want to run into that, I was telling Dave. I feel a lot better if we could just totally solve it. And then when he gets back I think we’ll have a very very expensive team. That’s really how it got going. I always wanted Prince because we just missed him by one in the draft. Milwaukee picked him just before us. I talked to Dave about it and we were ready for it but it didn’t happen. Of course I follow him very closely. I saw what he did in Milwaukee was unbelievable. So I says, I think we should go after Prince. Let’s make an effort and see if we can get him. After that it’s a long story.

Ilitch: Well I’ve made a few moves in sports. I’ve got a couple guys on nine year deals. Franzen and Zetterberg. That’s working out beautiful. I know this is a lot more money but I go by my instincts like everybody else does in business. My instincts told me this is going to work out fine. I’m not going to worry about it. I know what Prince can do. He’ll give 100%. He gives 120. He’ll give 120%. I’m very confident things will work out. i feel good about it. I don’t have any concerns. I’m not nervous about it. I know there’s probably something wrong with me there. It’s a green light.

Prince: That’s what I was before I went into free agency so that’s what I had in mind

boras; we were taling about john westhof about max scherzerr. john in his own way, he teasees me. He goes you know, would prince fielder be interested in a one year deal. I said he would, for nine years. we laughed.

when dave and john called me on the phone the next day, I suddenly reaized john wanted to know more about hte process and that’s how it began

some one is there from TV20? that still exists? and they have some sort of news department? I’ve been out of Detroit for about 4 years but that is some MAJOR change

Now I’m going to be thinking of this for the next nine years:

Prince: I’m excited. I’m glad that people are excited or me to come here. It means a lot. When you come somewhere especially with this kind of deal you want to be welcomed. I’m jst happy people want me to be here. I’m happy to be here.

Dombrowski: to me it’s extremely exciting. Starting on Tuesday when it leaked out. For spring training I get the ticket count on a daily basis. (Dombrowski says ticket sales went up 5 times as much as a normal day)

Our fticket department was here until 830 answering the phones for season tickets. we have tremendous fans. they love a great club too. we have a great club .

(then he talked too fast for my typing)

leyland: I’m not concerned at all. Mr Ilitch and Dave have given me a lot of nice peices of this puzzle. its’ the job of me and the coaches to put this puzzle together.

miguel cabrearr is going to play third base. we’re going to start in spring training. I feel ver comfortable in it.

he’s ot going to have hte agility defensively that brandon inge had, you give up a little something and you get something in return. we’re going back to old fashioned baseball, we’ve got power on the corners.

whenever yo’ve got great players it’s a real nice problem to have.

My process is a little bit different than mr litch’s and dave. I talk to the players. I did talk to Miguel. He’s 100% on board. He’s going to shed a little bit of weight — I hope not too mcuh. I also have spoken to brandon inge who I basicaly apolgozed to. I’m sorry he had to hear it other than from the horse’s mouth. i have talked ot brandon, he’s not the happier camper. he certainly understands.

SURPRISE!

prince: my years in milwaukee also had ryan braun there as well. its’ going to be awesome to have another MVP type player to play with. As well as the MVP and Cy Young.

moeny doesn’t take care of that. as far as coming here, I’m just excited to be here. I’m looking forward to coming back to where I grew up at . fans are really excited, I’m just glad they remembered me.

I doubt these fences are in the process of being mended

i’m not that good to pick where i want to launch at. you guys know me. I swing pretty hard. I’m trying to just hit line drives. I think on my part I don’t have to do anything different, juts try to make solid contact

Q: Was this as awkward as you thought it was going to be or should we start asking more questions about your dad?

Dombrowski: we’re trying to win right now. we’ve got a club, we tried to win last year, we were close. I think we’ve reached the point on the yearly basis we feel that way. there’s a lot of players who are quality players. we feel like we have a solid staff, a good every day lineup. we’re ting to do what we need to to win. all you can do is try to take caer of your busienss on a dialy basis.

you’re always aware of the future. I don’t mean to downplay the future. but it’s no secret we’re trying to win a world championship

prince: coming here every day with my dad, taking batting practice, getting thrown in trash cans by tony philips, pete incavilia, tony giving me candy on the side. a lot of good memories. hopefully I can give those to my two boys. those memories have helped me espcially in profesional baseball. those two guys were super heroes. it helped me a lot, just showed me what I really wnated to do as far as job. nothing better.

I went to school here, I definitley had frends at the time. as you get older you lose contact. I can’t really remember the city that much. but once I get here it’ll all start getting back to me

prince: I’m a team guy. whenever that time comes if we have to make that decision we’ll talk about it and see what happens. as of right now i’m confident in miguel doing a good job because that’s where he started out, at thir dbas

prince: probably see the same things on the field. i’m aggressive, that’s how you have to be when you play any sport. you want to be on the attack. just expect hard baseball and aggressiveness

Jim: we’re going to have great versatlity with it. you play a lot of things by ear. things etched in stone today odn’t work out that way.

we’re going to have tremendous flexibility with this roster. it’s going to be a very fun roster to manage. i could give you severa different ways i cold go today. I’ve written many many lineups already

it’s amazing because every lineup i’ve written down so far, cabrera and fieldre are in that lineup

leyland: I think what oy have to understand, cabrera I think I have a tremendous set of hands and I think I have one of the (something) arms in baseball.

I think when he gets himself at the weight he wants to be at, ithink his first step is very quick I think his hand are absolutely traemendous and I think his arm is one of the best throwing arms in baseball, it kind of got hidden at first base

Holy crap that’s an ugly tie Dombrowski’s wearing.

is looking pretty bored…give him a candy bar or something

prince: as far as the league it’s going to be an adjsutment because i haven’t seen all the pitchers in this league. but it’s still baseball in the end. I’m confident.

as for the contract as far as iving up to it, like mr ilitch said i’m just playing hard. the tigers wanted me here and I wanted to be here.

as far as living up to a certain statistic goal or whatever it’s out of my control. If I show up every day ready to play that’s all I can do

wants her to look at the size of the press conference (her first tigers conference apparently)

ilitch: she said i’m brown nosing because I spent all her money.

dave: I think we’re pretty well set going in, but you always can be better. that’s my job. so you’re always looking to get better. but you’re trying to do that with the parameteres that we currently have. we’ve talked about adding a couple of nonsrostered pitchers to compete for the fifth spot. not guys on guaranteed contracts. we’re still looking at that. al avila has been working on that hard the last couple of days.

i think position player wise we’re pretty well set

Weight clause? what a dick?

Who asked those questions?

boras: never anything abotu prince’s conditioning was ever questioned by anyone at this club at any time. I think that’s because the tigers have done their due diligence to understand who prince fielder is. sounds like mr ilitch was doing due diligence when pricne was 5.

as far as the involvement, dave and john always initially contact me and let me know they have an interset in the player.

the ilitch family and mike’s involvement, way back when we have a history. he let me know in 2003 what he wanted to do for his community, what he wenated to do for his family and what we wanted to do for his team.

… af ew years later we have a team from 119 losses to the world seire.s that type of success travels in the player community. when people talk about the detroit tigers they talk about a faily busienss. in driving all that forward the aspect of it is, you can tell players when they’re young you can look at the detroit tigers as a destination for you when you’re a free agent.

boras; teams kept calling for prince. there were a number of teams that came in in this process.

prince and chanelle redid their vows in early january and we really couldn’t begin this free agency until the 11thl so we had a number of teams waiting and we had to fiilter through the process. once john and I had a conversation, dave and I had a conversation, mr I and I began conversations about his intent and what he wnated for prince. his goal ultimately was to win a world championship. certainly prince is here because … when you look at this lineup, miguel cabrera is one of the greatest players in the game. couple that with someone like prince fielder … and oyu have something as far as historic quality as for what kind of production you can recieve.

(prince felt like he could win a world series in detroit, boras talks too fast)

ack couldn’t type up the lineup answer fast enoguh!!!!!!

Jackson
Boesch
Cabrera
Fielder
Delmon
Avila
Peralta
Dirks Thomas Kelly
Raburn

No mention of Santiago

ilitch: boras knows this team better than I do. he knows every player, what their averages are, where they’re from, what they did during their career, who leads the team, what areas are necessary, he just knows everything about the detorit tigers. I was flabbergasted. utility plaers,everything. he went through a big discussion and pointed out to me some of the things he thought were necessary to win a world series. he explained to me why and so on and soforth. there’s great salesmanship involved in that, but the guy is an encyclopedia when it comes to knowing the teams and knowing the people that are associated with the organization. I put the sales aside and listen to the commonsense he has and knowledge he has about the game.

I did have him on a potential DH day for somebody at third base. the plan right now I want to add. the plan is not to defense for miguel late in the game. as we speak today the plan is not to defense for those star players very often.

inge does have versatily so we could go that direction. the only lineup I have him in is third base. he can still be a valuable part of this club.

no defensive replacement
Miggy is the third baseman, period
music to my ears

um, you just did, Jimbo

You have Dirks, Thomas, or Kelly in the lineup every day?
and Raburn in the infield?
That’s messed up

“If they hit it where they’re supposed to, they can trot.”

we did tak about speed, but i’ve told everyone forever i’d rather have a slow guy who can hit than a fast guy who can’t. we’re a doubles team, that’s dave’s favorite hit in baseball. we’re not really a manufacture type team. for any good manager, you manage the people you have to get the best out of them. the playeres’ job is not to adjust to the managers’ style it’s the managers job to adjust to the players style

HA, is he worried about team speed? Like this team was a mid 80’s cardinals team last year? I didn’t realize VMart was so fleet of foot

just say jayden?
prince: I’m pretty sure they know your last name
jayden: Hi I’m Jayden!!

sportswriters fume at the question i’m sure

…..I guess………

I don’t blame him. I’d want to get back to my PS3 too! :-)

dave: we dont’ have a slaary cap in baseball. ours is more imposed by what we decide to do from a finnaicla perspecitve. i’ve worked with mr i for a long time. my arrangement with him is I find things I think make sense for us. he has whatever decision he wants to make as far as financial aspects. we have very good busienss aspect.

last week was kind of a crazy week. it started off with victor’s news. just like the rset of us when that news hits you you get the wind knocked out of you. on wendesday when I was dirving to grand rapids for the banquet that night my phone rang. it was david (sp?) adjess. I was gathering some names, talking to scouts and the free agent list. on thursday when the same call came through I said I put all these naes together there’s some solid guys. but there’s only one difference maker out there and that’s prince fielder. and he says why dont we try to get him

dave: thursday) is really when the conversations started. it was apparent and we were kidn of joking at ht time that we weren’t going to sign prince for one year. when I told people it wasn’t a fit I didn’t rally have an indication we were going to go long term. when I got back from teh caravan friday it was about a quarter to five.

we called (ilitch) and updated on the situation and he said let’s see if we can get somethign don here. john had already talked to scott and made an initail offer. a lot started up the next day and I was on the phone numerous times with Mr I. we needed to make sure these were some of the things we needed to do to go forward. talk to miguel call miguel officially.

we were glad to make it happen but it was our responsibiltiy to make (Mr I) aware wehere we stood as an organization.

we didn’t have any secondary plan that was close to prince fielde.r. there’ssome very good players, some quality names, some guys may go to the hall of fame. he (prince) i’s entring the prime of his caree.r he’s 27 years old.

Thank goodness…

phew, glad that’s over, now I can go back to watching Arrested Development at work instead of press conferences

I’m going to watch it again

this effing trial brief is bugging me now

“It’s really glorious to be able to come back to where I grew up.”

Although the opportunity to make sarcastic comments did help a bit

He’ll wear 28 like he did in Milwaukee

But Bingey, it’s good for the team, right?

I missed the presser. Any chance they’ll show the full video online later?

A few silly questions here and there, just to get quotes.

However, when I listened to Prince answer I really didn’t like what I heard from him. Didn’t seem too excited about being here. But, what do I know?

He’s apparently (and rightfully so) a big Phil Coke’s Brain fan:

@PhilCokesBrain funniest moment of the press conference was when mr. I dropped a random Raburn reference hahaha

@PhilCokesBrain I think it’s upstairs by that tigers restaurant I just imagine leather arm chairs and smoking jackets. #mrIisaboss

@PhilCokesBrain Dave naming off red wings players. I love it. Also, mr I signs the checks he can interrupt anyone’s question to speak.

@PhilCokesBrain by the way detroit fans, that was my badass tie the skipper was wearing and I picked out the suit/shirt/tie combo.

MLB network will have an interview with Prince. Just a heads up. They also are replaying the presser right now.

He’s outta there. Expect him to be gone elsewhere.

or is it posted elsewhere?

Prince’s son is almost as cute as Lil Victor!

I’m surprised this topic has not yet been discussed at length.

But, I think he’s just nervous. I’d bee nervous too if I was by myself getting asked questions about: Obscene amounts of money I am making, if it is worth it, my bad fielding, moving to third base, my teammates.

I think from what I have seen of him he is going to be an awesome clubhouse guy. Take this video:

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=17590087&topic_id=17396516&c_id=mlb&tcid=vpp_copy_17590087&v=3

He might have looked awkward/nonplussed today but if that video is the type of Prince we are getting, I am even happier.