Rays honor gold medalists

By BRUCE LOWITT

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 2, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Second baseman Brent Abernathy said it was "like a pennant race every day." Pitcher Bobby Seay said it would be "very hard to match the intensity."

Both said they wouldn't have missed it for the world.

They played the best in the world and came home with gold, Olympic baseball champions.

Abernathy, Seay and catcher Pat Borders, three Devil Rays minor-leaguers, were saluted before Sunday's game, joined by pitcher Matt White, named to the team but unable to play because of a strained right shoulder, Michelle Smith of Treasure Island, pitcher on the gold-medal U.S. Olympic softball team, and Devil Rays major-league scout Bart Johnson, advance scout for Olympic baseball.

"The intensity (of the games) was equal to the World Series," said Borders, who played in two of them with Toronto, including 1992 when he was Most Valuable Player.

"But the meaning was greater. You're representing your country, so if you lose you're disappointing a lot more people than just one city; you're disappointing the whole country."

Abernathy added: "It meant a lot to us to bring baseball back to where the gold medal deserves to be," particularly because the U.S. team had to beat Cuba in the championship game.

"We felt the political side of it; we were reminded every day by (the media) ... and we were playing a very good team that has been beating up on the USA for years. But we wanted to win a gold medal and it didn't matter who we'd have to beat to get it."

Abernathy said voluble manager Tommy Lasorda "had plenty of meetings, gave us plenty of motivational speeches, but against Cuba all he told us was that if we couldn't get ready to play for a gold medal we didn't deserve to be there."

The Cubans beat the United States in their preliminary-round game, which Borders described as "very tough, very intense. Hard slides (into fielders), hit batters," and a few incidents that nearly degenerated into fights.

As important as the game was to the U.S. players, Borders said, it was even more important to the Cubans. "It didn't matter if they won the gold in every other event," he said. "If they didn't win it in baseball the country would be in mourning because that's their sport."

Smith said these Olympic Games compared favorably with those in Atlanta four years ago and might even have been more satisfying because of the road the softball team had to take to the gold medal this time.

"Nineteen ninety-six was awesome because it was the first time softball was in the Olympics, so winning the gold medal there was definitely, at that point, the highlight of my career. To come back in 2000 and be able to represent the country again was just incredible.

"But what makes 2000 so special for us is that we ended up dropping three games in a row," Smith said, "and, being the No. 1 team in the world, everyone was like, "Oh, my God, what's happened to USA softball?' Then we bounced back to win our last two (preliminary-round) games and get into the medal round.

"And then we had to face every team that beat us during the week, so we were able to get a little bit of revenge against China, Australia and Japan. That's what made it so sweet, that we came back and beat them when it counted."

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