You don’t pay much attention to rumors, even if something pops up on the TV’s on the bottom line, although then it becomes a little more serious. But at the same time, when you’re a veteran guy, you’ve played for 10 years, you’ve seen plenty of rumors that have gotten shot down. You learn not to take things too seriously until you’re packing up your stuff and heading off to another team. You hear so many things that are supposed to come true, guys are supposed to be traded five or six times and are never traded once. You start to doubt all the rumors, I guess, even when you hear them floating around, unless you just talk to the player directly.

Demp’s in a different situation because they’re always going to have to be in contact with him to make sure they’re not wasting their time if he doesn’t want to go to a certain spot. For most guys, you don’t even hear anything until the general manager comes down and tells you you’re out of here. Demp’s in kind of a unique situation because he can control where he wants to go.

If I get a call from Theo or Jed, I’d be like oh, darn, there’s four, five days before the Trade Deadline, this is probably not about what gardener do you use in the Chicago area. If you get a phone call from them, you want to pick it up, especially at this time of year.

— Reed