Zach Levine has the transcript of Bagwell's press conference this afternoon in which he explained why he would not be returning to the Astros in 2011 - in the same role.
My initial thought was, "What the heck did he expect it to be like? The guy played for 15 years, how could he not know how much he'd be away from his family?"
Bagwell answered that question:
Let me tell you something right now. When you're playing you have no idea what goes on in that coaching room. In today's game it's even more because you have that video room back there, and they're back there every single second. Brad Arnsberg's back there for hours breaking down hitters. And I was not in there for hours. But it was a lot of time and a lot of work.
So that's that. It's understandable, but I wish it wouldn't have happened. How much impact did Bagwell have? That's something we're going to have all season to figure out in 2011.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
