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Tade prospects - check
Sign catcher - check
Get bullpen help - check.
Help bring peace to the Middle East - check
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BY ANTHONY McCARRON
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Tuesday, January 8th 2008, 4:00 AM
Sipkin/News
Duaner Sanchez will be back with the Mets next season. Half a wolrd away from his office at Shea, in between visits to the old section of Jerusalem and a sports clinic to foster harmony between Israeli and Palestinian kids, Omar Minaya has still found time to conduct the Mets' offseason business.
"My phone works here," Minaya said with a chuckle yesterday in a telephone interview from a bus in the middle of a Jerusalem traffic jam. "God bless technology. I've checked in with some general managers and I've talked to my scouts and my assistant, John Ricco. Even though I'm here, I'll be on the phone, too, trying to improve our team."
The Mets got some business done Monday, announcing they had signed reliever Duaner Sanchez to a one-year contract worth $850,000. Sanchez missed all of last season with a broken bone in his shoulder. The Mets also signed eight others to minor-league deals and invited them to spring training.
Minaya, who spent time last winter in Ghana on a trip to promote baseball, has joined agent Arn Tellem and other sports personalities such as former Chicago Bull B.J. Armstrong on an eight-day trip to Israel to "bring Palestinian and Israeli kids together and really encourage unity and peace," Minaya said.
"For me to come and do this, it's fun and something I believe in. Also, I've always been curious about the area, a lot of the spiritual meaning of the area. That's always been something that's interested me.
"We went to the (Yad Vashem) Holocaust Museum. We went to the old city of Jerusalem and have gone to the Christian quarters and we're going to the Jewish quarters in the next day or so. We've spent some time doing a basketball clinic, mostly promoting peace with the Palestinian and Israeli kids."
Minaya left New York on Saturday and said he planned to return at the end of the week. The group also will visit the Dead Sea and Tel Aviv and was scheduled to meet with president Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, among other dignitaries.
Tellem, who has made similar visits in the past, organized the trip along with Sharon Tzur, the founder of Media Watch International, a nonprofit group, and the trip is run in part by the Peres Peace Center.
A pro baseball league finished its inaugural season in Israel last year and while the sport might be gaining popularity, Minaya, for one, is no household name there, though he runs one of the game's most visible franchises.
"The kids don't know me, but other people do," Minaya said. "The kids are curious about baseball, they ask about it. I tell them about it. For me, this is another way of promoting baseball and the Mets."
SIGNS: The Mets announced minor-league pacts for RHPs Juan Padilla, Joselo Diaz and Andy Cavazos, infielders Anderson Machado and Fernando Tatis, catchers Robinson Cancel and Salomon Manriquez and LHP Ryan Cullen.
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