And shortly before the date for renewal of season tickets, Bloom had a conference call with season ticket holders and assured them that his #1 priority was to make Mookie a Red Sox for life. The deadline for renewal was December 17th. Within a few weeks, the trade Mookie rumors started. I dismissed the rumors because of his unequivocal position to do everything to keep Mookie. Certainly, he would try to resign him and wouldn’t trade him. I think he lied to us, and with all my criticisms of GM’s, I can’t remember any of them lying to the fans. For all of my criticisms of Benny, he was extremely honest. He never told us that he would do one thing and then did the opposite. He had integrity.