Mark Shapiro Playing Quotations

He was unhappy with his role on 'College GameDay,' ... He felt that he was playing second fiddle.

We're obviously not playing the kind of baseball we're capable of playing right now. But we've got 142 games to go. We're still .500 (10-10). It could be worse, but I think it will get better.

Our original plan in the off-season was to slate the No. 5 spot in the rotation for a younger player (Jason Davis or Fausto Carmona) and to spend money to upgrade elsewhere. When we were unable to get some other things done, we saw an opportunity to improve the team by signing Jason. The young guys still could end up playing a role for us in 2006.

We were looking for a bigger playing field. Folks expected to walk into clients without investing lots of money, but the so-called 'low-hanging fruit' wasn't there.

We're used to playing close games against them. We just need to do a better job of finishing them off.

The only fulfillment I'll allow myself is when we're playing again in October and hoisting pennants above Jacobs Field. We can't stop now.

We won't stand in the way of either one getting major league jobs. But just because we've made these decisions, that's not to say that either one couldn't be playing in Cleveland at some point this year.

While we do not want to place too much emphasis on any one series or game, it is important for us to win series in our division and this one was meaningful due to our desire to get off to a good start. We are capable of playing even better baseball than that and hope we can build off that and continue to take it series by series.

I didn't feel like we were going to keep up our end of the bargain of playing time that we had communicated to him. I didn't feel like we could and still put the best team on the field.

He phoned us and told us that he was unhappy with his role on College GameDay . He felt that he was playing second fiddle.