I tried to find it online without luck, but there is a nice tidbit by Jayson Stark in the current edition of ESPN: The Magazine on Hee Seop Choi's adjustment to the Marlins this season. One look at his stat line for the year (269/395/672, 9 hr) tells you that he's doing just great on the field. According to the article, part of his early success is due to feeling more at ease in Florida. Manager Jack McKeon, to Choi: "I want you to relax. It's your job."

That's a message Choi never got in any language last year with the Cubs. His ballyhooed rookie season fizzled into a .218/8/28 disappoinment. "I don't think anybody game him any confidence there," says Lenny Harris, his teammate now and then. "He was playing in fear that if he didn't hit, they'd send him down." This team, Choi says, "makes me feel more comfortable."

I never thought that the Lee-Choi trade was a bad trade, and I still don't think so (Lee's early season struggles are nothing new). But I do think that it was unfortunately a necessary trade, as it was clear that Dusty Baker wanted no part of developing Choi. Baker, in fact, was lobbying for the Cubs to re-sign a platoon of Randall Simon and Eric Karros for this year, which would have been utterly ridiculous.

You have to take the good and bad with Baker, and realize that Baker simply isn't patient with youngsters, having really guided only one young position player that I can think of (Rich Aurilia) successfully in his entire managerial career. I'll never stop rooting for Choi, one of my favorite Cubs in the past few years, but I will always wonder what kind of career he could have had in Cubbie blue.