Hammers to Gray: Fat Chance--Team sticks with weight-and-see tactic

By Tony Massarotti
Boston Herald Sports Columnist

QUINCY POINT, MA - When you really stop and think about it, John Gray never had a chance. Not when he is 34 years old and just one in a strong class of potential free agent outfielders. Not when the M.C. Club have money to burn and Gray looks like he just ate John Cascarano.

The latter is a triviality, of course, because by now we all know that beautiful bodies and softball do not necessarily mesh. Former Louies SS/2B/DH Dave McMillian just got voted into the B.S.S.S.L. Hall of Fame, and McMillian played much of his career built like Spanky from the Little Rascals.

But McMillian & Gray can hit, and there was a time in Gray's career when that might have been enough to get a one-year, incentive laden contract extension.

That time is no more.

“It’s disappointing, but that’s the way it works,” Gray said yesterday, one day after the M.C. Club informed him that they would not be granting him a contract extension. “It’s a business and I get that."

Next fall, Matt Fratolillo, Dennis Joyce, Mike Bayliss, Fred Regan, Mark Nutley, Lou Venterelli and even Rich Brill are among the potential free agents.

Know what that all means? It means the M.C. Club can wait. It means that if Gray still wants to play here and the price has gone up to, say, 7 free beers a game, the Hammers can pay it without buyer’s remorse. It also means that the black & orange will have other options available if and when Gray decides to go elsewhere.