CHICAGO (AP) -Joe Crede’s glad he can just concentrate on baseball. His back has healed after surgery last June, the rampant trade rumors encircling him have subsided and he’s back as the starting third baseman for the White Sox.
“I couldn’t ask for anything more the way everything feels right now,” said Crede, who was limited to 47 games a year ago.
Crede made a strong return to U.S. Cellular Field on Monday, hitting a grand slam in the seventh that sent the White Sox to a 7-4 win over the Minnesota Twins.
Crede got a loud ovation before the game and came out of the dugout for a curtain call after his homer.
“It means a lot. It means you feel like you belong here,” Crede said. “I feel like I’ve done things here that, you know, the fans appreciate.”
As Crede went through a long rehab process after surgery, speculation that he would be traded ran on, especially with Josh Fields ready to take over at third. Fields was called up when Crede was out last season and hit 23 homers in 100 games.
No trade materialized, Fields was shipped back to Triple-A and Crede has gotten off to a strong start. He had four hits Sunday night against Detroit, hit a go-ahead homer against the Indians in the third game of the season and has 10 RBIs in the first seven games during the White Sox’s 5-2 start.
“Sometimes the best deals are the ones you don’t make,” general manager Ken Williams said Monday.
Williams said he never set out to make a deal that wasn’t in the team’s best interest. Crede was a standout at the plate and in the field during the 2005 postseason when the White Sox won their first World Series since 1917.
“I’m happy for him, No. 1. And for his family, the whole Crede clan, just because he’s back out on the field. He’s happier and his wife is happier,” Williams added. “It’s all good.”
Crede reiterated through the spring that he wanted to stay with the White Sox, even though he can become a free agent after this season and the possibility of a trade had been very real.
Did he think he’d ever be back for another home opener?
“What can you do?” Crede said. “There is nothing you can do but hope you are going to be here. This has never been a situation of whether I wanted to be here or not. … I want to be here the rest of my career, but there is a business side of baseball and unfortunately if it gets in the way, it gets in the way.”
Crede, who is represented by Scott Boras, wants to put all his energy on being a productive player again after having last season cut short by pain and then surgery.
He batted only .216 last season with four homers in 167 at-bats. In 2006, he had 30 homers and 94 RBIs, a follow up to a postseason in 2005 when he homered four times and had 11 RBIs.
He let his family monitor the trade rumors and spent his time trying to recover from the surgery.
“For me there is too much stuff to worry about on the field rather than having to worry about stuff you can’t control off the field. So it’s just useless to even think about it,” he said.
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