8 Crazy Baseball Trade Deadline Stories – Complex

Cliff Floyd is a MLB Network Studio Analyst and former outfielder who played 17 years in the bigs with seven teams. Floyd had the misfortune of being traded twice, from the Florida Marlins to the Montreal Expos to the Boston Red Sox, in a 19-day span during the 2002 season that tested his wife’s patience.

“It was crazy. When I got to Montreal from Florida, Frank Robinson, the Hall of Famer, was the manager. And I was like, ‘Yo, Frank, everything’s good, I came over here to win, I left a situation down in Florida that wasn’t right for me.’ And he’s like, ‘Look, everything is great.’ My wife and I were staying at a hotel, and finally we get tired of that. She’s like, ‘I want to be with you the whole time you’re here and go through this whole shebang with you. But I need to be living in an apartment where I can cook and do my thing and blasé, blasé.’ So I said cool. I go into Frank’s office. Frank is sitting at his desk. I go in, like, ‘Frank, look—wifey mad at me. She wants to move all this stuff, we’ve got it packed in the car. Let me know if I should keep this stuff packed in the car or is there a possibility before Aug. 1 I’m getting traded again.’ He takes off his hat and puts it on the desk and goes, ‘You tell the wifey to get her apartment, unpacks those bags, and, you know what? Get you a place because you ain’t going nowhere.’ I get on the horn, call wifey up, like, ‘Yo, unpack the boxes, do your thing, go the grocery store, get some food, I’ll be home at 10. Let’s have a great little dinner, a little bottle of wine—cheers to the fact that I’ll be here the rest of the time.'”

“No lie: This is before I get traded to Boston. I play a game—I don’t know what happened in it—and after [former Expos general manager] Omar Minaya comes up to me like, ‘Let me holla at you in Frank’s office,’ I ain’t trippin’ because Frank just told me before the game I’m good. It’s Frank Robinson—he ain’t trippin’. I get in there and Frank is shaking his head with his hat off. I go, ‘Oh, snap.’ Omar is like, ‘Yo, we put you in a better situation.’ I’m like, ‘You’re going to have to call my wife and explain to her.’ Omar said, ‘I ain’t doing it.’ I said, ‘Frank, you said it—you doing it.’ And Frank is like, ‘Give me the damn phone.’ And Frank called my wife and apologized for me being traded.”