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BRADENTON, Fla. -- There are days, when he's stuck in traffic on his way to Phoenix Municipal Stadium in the early morning hours, that he'll pick up his cell phone and call across the country.

He'll call McKechnie Field to check up on friends he's made over the past nine years.

He'll call and talk to members of the equipment staff, the traveling secretary and the media relations director.

So far, though, Jason Kendall hasn't used that cell phone to dial any of his former Pirates teammates. And it's been about a month since he's had any contact with his former manager, Lloyd McClendon.

"I'd like to say I have, but I haven't," Kendall said. "I do look in the paper once in a while and check out the box score. I made some friends over there and I like those guys, but I really don't care what anyone else is doing. I'm not there anymore.

"I need to go out and do what I can do to get the Oakland A's to win. I'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just being me."

Four months have passed since the Pirates traded Kendall, their three-time All-Star catcher and franchise leader in games caught, to Oakland for left-handed pitchers Mark Redman and Arthur Rhodes.

At the time, Kendall said he wanted to make a clean break from the only organization he had ever known, the organization that took him in the first round of the 1992 draft, handed him the everyday catching duties in 1996 and gave him the richest contract in franchise history in 2000.

Kendall was true to his word, and that didn't surprise shortstop Jack Wilson, who spent four seasons as Kendall's teammate.

"He always stayed on his own as far as stuff outside of baseball," Wilson said. "I don't think anybody in here wishes any bad feelings on him because of it or because he's not here anymore. Everybody here liked him. He'll be missed, and we wish him the best of luck."

Kendall's disconnection extended to the reporters who had chronicled his every move for nine years. He did not return repeated phone calls from three newspaper outlets immediately after the trade, preferring that the A's stage a collective conference call after the deal was announced.

Kendall changed his phone number and didn't relent to an interview request from the Pittsburgh media until this past week when he spoke at length from his spring training home not far from the Athletics' site in Phoenix.

"There still is a soft spot in my heart for Pittsburgh," Kendall said. "The Pirates are the team that I grew up with. I met a lot of good people, made a lot of good friends, all that stuff. But I want to win and I want to win now. Whether that's will happen here, I have no idea, but I'm enjoying every bit about being here. Everybody here expects to be in a pennant race in September, and as a player that's all you can ask for. You want every pitch and every at-bat to mean something."

He said that wasn't the case with the Pirates, whose 12-year streak of consecutive losing seasons included his first nine years in the majors.

"There were times last year when people would say, 'The Cubs are coming to town. We get the chance to be a spoiler,'" Kendall said. "That made me sick. Why not try to be the Cubs and be on the other side? Who wants to be a spoiler?"

Although he was one of the franchise's most popular players over the past decade, Kendall became disenchanted with the losing and started to withdraw from his ever-changing cast of teammates. In a three-month span in 2003, he watched the Pirates trade most of his best friends -- Mike Williams, Brian Giles, Scott Sauerbeck -- and release another -- Kevin Young.

But last season, after becoming a father for the first time, Kendall seemed to mellow and began adapting to the new core of players the Pirates were gathering.

"From the minute that kid came, you could see a change in him," Wilson said. "He also knew the team was in transition and he figured he was the next to go."

Kendall welcomed the trade, which is why he promptly waived the no-trade clause in his contract. He did not fault Pirates management for making the deal and escaping the remaining three years and $34 million on his contract. During a 45-minute conversation, he refused to bash general manager Dave Littlefield, whom he had criticized privately in recent years, and wished nothing but the best for McClendon, his former teammates and the city of Pittsburgh.

"I will never say a negative thing about the Pirates," Kendall said. "Pittsburgh is a great, great sports town and the fans know their stuff. They want winners there, and my one regret is that in my time there I wasn't able to give them a winner. It was just time for a change."

Kendall said expectations are different between Oakland and Pittsburgh even though each has a reputation as a blue-collar city and is considered a small market by baseball standards.

Then again, the Athletics have finished either first or second in the American League West since 1999 and made the playoffs four years in a row until falling just short last season.

Kendall left a team averaging 91 losses in the past five seasons for one averaging 96 wins.

"When you walk into the clubhouse here, it's baseball, baseball, baseball, nothing else. It's all about winning," he said. "Everybody knows we have to get our work in until April 4 and then it's 'Let's go win.' In Pittsburgh, it was like, 'Let's get to .500.' That's not the way it is here. That's not the goal, it's to win a ring. I always say every year that my goal is to win a World Series ring. That's the feeling I get in this camp, and I really feel like I have a chance to do it.

"I'm not trying to knock the Pirates, it's just a feeling I have."

When Kendall waived his no-trade clause and approved a trade to the A's, he went to a team that still was built for success around the Big Three - pitchers Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito.

Not long after the microphones from Kendall's introductory press conference were dismantled, A's general manager Billy Beane traded Hudson to the Atlanta Braves and Mulder to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Kendall, though, doesn't think he was sold a bill of goods.

"I talked to Billy, and I knew they were going to do some things," Kendall said. "But, like I told the Oakland reporters, I've seen these guys that we got in return. I've seen Juan Cruz, Kiko Calero, Charles Thomas, Dan Meyer.

"The Big Three were probably the three best young pitchers in the game, and they were the team. But I know the guys we got in return are big-league players and have the potential to be dominating.

"When I was at our fanfest, I heard Scott Hatteberg say this is like a new era for the A's. That's just the way it is. And it's the way it is in Pittsburgh with (Benito) Santiago and (Humberto) Cota replacing me."

Winning wasn't the only factor in Kendall's decision to waive his no-trade clause. He long has maintained a desire to return to his West Coast roots. After becoming a father for the first time in his last off-season with the Pirates, Kendall married his fiance in October and is a stepfather to her two children.

"I can watch the kids grow up as opposed to watching it over a (cell) phone," Kendall said. "When you have three kids, asking them to sit on a plane for five hours is hard. Here, it's a 45-minute flight away from home or a four and a half hour drive.

"It has been great having them here. All I do is go to the park and come home. My real work starts at four when I'm home with the kids. My play time is from seven to four when I'm at the field."

Kendall said it didn't take long to get adjusted to a new set of teammates. When rumors circulated last month that outfield Eric Byrnes was coming to the Pirates in a trade, Kendall said he took his old No. 18 black-and-gold duffel bag out of storage and offered it to Byrnes as a going-away present.

"Guys are going to be the same, just the names on the back of their uniforms are going to different," he said. "One thing that I see around here is that every young guy -- not to say that young guys in Pittsburgh weren't this way -- but every young guy asks questions, wants to know more, do anything they can to get better. They want to pick your mind more."

Kendall, though, admitted it was strange not boarding a plane for Florida when spring training began.

"I've known one thing for 13 years, including the minors," he said. "It always began in Bradenton. It's just different now. But like I've said since the first press conference, it was time for a change. For Pittsburgh and myself. It's hard because I would have like to have won something for the fans, but that wasn't the case. It was time for me to move on."

And not look back.

"I know what the game is," he said. "There are a lot of people that I'll miss. I made some friends for life there. That's not something that you stop doing. At the same time, I know what I'm getting into. This is a chance for me to win. Not to say that Pittsburgh doesn't want to win, but that's not my worry anymore."

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