Ex-Giant Williams happy to be with Cubs
By Stacy Kaneshiro
Advertiser Staff Writer
Jerome Williams was still asleep when the San Francisco Giants traded their one-time top pitching prospect and relief pitcher David Aardsma to the Chicago Cubs for reliever LaTroy Hawkins yesterday.
But for the 1999 Waipahu High graduate, the wake-up call from his father was welcomed news.
Williams
"I can start off new now," Williams said in a telephone interview from Fresno, Calif., where he had been assigned at the Giants' Triple-A club. "I can start with a clean slate, have a different team to have a career with."
Williams, who turns 24 on Dec. 4, felt his career came to a standstill with the Giants, who made him the 39th overall selection in the 1999 Major League draft after he graduated from Waipahu High.
The 6-foot-3 right-hander steadily climbed through the Giants' farm system and made his big league debut in 2003, when he finished 7-5 with a 3.30 ERA. Last year, he went 10-7 with a 4.24 ERA.
But he started this season 0-2 with a 6.48 ERA in four games before being optioned to Fresno, where he was 1-4 with a 9.36 ERA.
"Once I heard I got traded to the Cubs, I was happy," Williams said. "I really didn't care who they got for me. I was just glad I was out of the Giants organization because I felt I couldn't go anywhere with them.
"I was trying to do my best, but unfortunately, they didn't see that in me, so I'm just happy I'm with the Cubs now."
He said he will be assigned to the Iowa Cubs, who, like Fresno, are members of the Pacific Coast League. He said he is scheduled to start Tuesday in Des Moines against the Oklahoma Redhawks (Texas Rangers). Williams said there is no timetable for his return to the majors.
"However long I have to stay there to get that call up, I'll stay as long as I have to," he said. "I'm just very excited I'm with a ball club that actually believes in me and I think I can do something for their organization."
Williams said he was asleep when Giants officials were trying to reach him to inform him of the trade, so they called his father, Glenn Williams Sr.
"(Giants Senior Vice President and General Manager) Brian Sabean called me, (minor leagues operations director) Bobby Evans called me, our (Fresno) trainer called me," Williams said. "They were trying to get in touch with me, but I was sleeping. The first person to actually tell me was my dad. My dad actually told me what was going on, what happened, so he told me to call Bobby Evans, so I called Bobby and he told me."
With the trade, Williams has a chance to be reunited with Cubs manager Dusty Baker, who had been the Giants' manager from 1993 to 2002. Although Williams was not with the Giants until 2003, he had helped with Baker's Hawai'i Winter Baseball camps. Williams said he does not know if Baker had any influence in the trade.
The trade made Williams more aware of his profession.
"I did a lot for the Giants," he said. "I did what they wanted me to do. To come down to this, that's when you really think that baseball, in my eyes now, is a business. That's all it is right now."
Williams said his wife, Sarah, and his family here aren't troubled by the trade. Except for one thing.
"I told my dad to get rid of the Giants stuff," Williams said. "He has to wear Cubs stuff now."
The elder Williams said: "I told him, 'I'll keep (the Giants paraphernalia) because it was your first big league team and this was your first trade.' "
The other pitcher in the trade with Williams is familiar to University of Hawai'i fans. Aardsma pitched for Rice in 2002 to 2003 and is the school's career saves leader with 17.
Hawkins, who had 25 saves last year for the Cubs, is expected to be used as a setup for closer Todd Walker, Giants manager Felipe Alou told The Associated Press.
Reach Stacy Kaneshiro at skaneshiro@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8042.
