Mar. 14 -- Q&A WITH ED WADE

BY SCOTT LAUBER

So, here I sit, in the Southwest terminal at Philly International, getting ready to return to Clearwater. But while I'm en route, enjoy these excerpts of a Q&A today in Kissimmee between Astros (and former Phillies) GM Ed Wade and several reporters, including my colleague Chuck Gormley. As always, I welcome your comments, and when it comes to Wade, I know y'all have an opinion.

Talk to you in a bit from Florida.

On the Phillies winning World Series: "I was happy they finally got to the finish line. I'm happy for Charlie [Manuel] because I know what Charlie went through after I hired him. I'm happy for the kids who came through the system and the coaching staff, but I'm probably even happier for the front-office people we left in place there. I think that was a big part of the success, having good people in the scouting and development side. I started my career there as an intern in February of 1977, and a lot of the people who were there are still with the organization. I'm happy it finally happened. I wished it had happened in '05. I tell people if Cole hadn't broken his hand at the pool room he probably would have been up at some point during the season when [Randy] Wolf got hurt and things might have been different. I'm happy we did things the right way and sorry that it took so long to get there."

Where were you when they won?: "An apartment in Houston. I was actually sleeping when they clinched, and when Pat [Gillick] said the nice things about me I was sound asleep and my phone started beeping text messages and I found out the next day what he said about me, which was extremely gratifying."

Who did you receive texts from?: "Players, management, friends Philadelphia contacts, family. I might have been the only person alive who was actually asleep when the Phillies clinched. I didn't have a rooting interest in it."

Any regrets about trading Brad Lidge to the Phillies?: "When I first got this opportunity, it was clearly a consensus of opinion that Brad needed a change of scenery, that for whatever reason he just wasn't able to get back on track and be the same guy he was in previous seasons. It wasn't a mandate to make a move, but it was a consensus of opinion from the people who were in the organization that we had to do something."

On Michael Bourn: "Michael is going to be a good center fielder for us. He got a full season under his belt last season, and I think he learned a lot about not being as selective. He's not going to be Juan Pierre. [Geoff] Geary did a good job for us, and [Michael] Costanzo was part of the deal that brought us Tejada and Miggy was absolutely tremendous for us last year on and off the field. Trades work out for both clubs. We made a good baseball trade. It worked out very well for Philadelphia, and we think the results are going to be satisfactory for us as well. We had conversations [about Lidge] with several clubs, and Philadelphia, to their credit, stayed aggressive on it. One of the deals that we had a chance to make -- and if we had made it, at the time people would have scratched their heads -- was for Cleveland's Cliff Lee. If we make that deal Philly probably doesn't get in the World Series, and we look really smart if Cliff Lee has the season he had for us [instead of going 22-3 for Cleveland in 2008]. I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on it unless a Philly fan comes up to me and says thanks."

On Ruben Amaro Jr.: "As attractive as it may seem, I think it's always tough to take over the world champions because expectations are very high. I think everybody in this game knows how difficult it is to repeat under any circumstance, so that's going to be a challenge for him. But he knows the personnel very well. He came off the field at the end of the 1998 season, so he's been in the front office for over 10 years and knows the ins and outs of the entire operation. It's a huge step in the right direction for him. He's very bright and a great baseball guy and has good people surrounding him. I'm really proud things worked out for him. Ruben had a certain skill set that I didn't think we had at the front office level -- recent major-league playing experience. Ruben had familiarity with the game at the field level. The fact that he's bilingual was huge, a local Philly guy and Stanford graduate. We teased him when he was a player about being the 'total package,' but to his credit he took advantage of every opportunity that we gave him. We worked side-by-side involving everything -- contract negotiations, rules, trades, player evaluations. I think the time he spent working with me was great and having the benefit of working with Pat for a couple years was a huge step forward as well."