SIROTKA AFFAIR BECOMING A SEARCH FOR TRUTH

This isn’t a trade, it’s a whodunit. Now we have a smoking syringe. We have a doctor who is the last word on arm injuries who supposedly needs more information. Don’t we all.

We have a first-year GM, Ken Williams, battling a perception that he’s running the White Lie Sox. But at the bottom of this Canada of worms we have Toronto GM Gord “I Better Cover My” Ash.

This is beginning to smell like a GM in fear of losing his job. This was the first deal Ash had made under new owner Ted Rogers. It’s quite possible Rogers sat back and said, “This is all we could get for David Wells?”

Many Toronto fans wouldn’t know Mike Sirotka from Mike Williams, the no-name low-minors pitcher traded with Sirotka for former toast of New York Wells. Nearing 30, Sirotka hasn’t even made an All-Star team. The only way he’ll sell tickets at SkyDome is from behind a window.

The Mets were hot to stick it to the Yankees by bringing Wells back to New York. But maybe Ash let his pride blind him. Wells badly wanted to take another bite out of the Apple–heaven knows he needs to eat healthier. But Wells had insulted Blue Jays fans and management, and Ash didn’t want to grant his wish. So, once the White Sox reluctantly agreed to give him lefty starter Sirotka instead of Jim Parque, bang, Ash took it.

Several mysterious MRIs and a disputed cortisone shot later, Ash contends Williams sold him double damaged goods. Sirotka has gone from having what the Sox openly acknowledged before the trade–shoulder inflammation–to what the Blue Jays allege is a “torn rotator cuff and labrum.” Mike Williams has gone from what Ken Williams thought was nothing more than a bone bruise to having a “much more serious” injury.

Now you have to wonder if Ash is conniving to get the trade rescinded. For owner Rogers, perhaps hearing about the potential health risks of Sirotka and Williams only added injury to insult. Whatever, now it appears Ash wants the job-saving opportunity to re-trade Wells for a higher-profile return.

That’s why the obvious Sox checkmate won’t work. Indications are that GM Williams would gladly have said, fine, take Parque if you’re so worried about Sirotka. Though Parque is almost five years younger, his diminutive stature and fragile confidence will make him a poor man’s Sirotka in the long run. Even if Sirotka needed half a season to heal, the Sox would be much further ahead keeping his spot warm with, say, lefty Mark Buehrle than keeping Parque.

But Ash didn’t want Parque before and wouldn’t want him now. Perhaps that’s why, Williams says, Ash hasn’t been returning his calls, nor have Blue Jays doctors been responding to Sox doctors.

Williams wants his doctors to see the MRI that Mike Williams had taken on his own. No response, the GM says. GM Williams wants to clear up the cortisone controversy with Ash. No response, he says.

Who better to conspire with Ash than the one other principle who wants the trade killed? After growing for eight seasons with the “Kids Can Play” Sox, Sirotka no more wanted to be traded than to be right-handed. So Monday he dropped the cortisone bomb on Chicago reporters.

Ten days before the trade was made, Sirotka indeed was given an injection to kill shoulder inflammation. Sounds suspicious. This will be Exhibit A against the Sox.

But Williams was incensed over the implication that the injection was intended to “mask” pain during the initial hands-on exam by Toronto’s doctor: “We’ve had to shut down Mike in spring training two straight years, and we wanted him to be further along in his [stretching and throwing] program when he got there. So he got the injection. Lorenzo Barcelo got one too. Our doctors had no idea we were going to trade Mike.”

Williams also believes the Toronto doctor knew Sirotka had been given cortisone. Yet–says Ash–a second MRI showed major damage. But as former Cubs pitcher Rick Sutcliffe used to say, MRI stands for Maybe Really Injured. Reading them is like reading shadows and fog. One doctor’s tear is another’s clean bill.

Perhaps the most decisive doctor in the injured-arm field is James Andrews, who examined Sirotka Tuesday for the Blue Jays. Strangely, they announced Andrews “needs more information and documents he doesn’t have.” Has he turned into Dr. Watson? Has Ash hired Sherlock Holmes?

No, Holmes wouldn’t work for Moriarity.