from Amazon
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Muzzling players
While I offered one terrible and one legitimate choice when I asked about Depodesta last week, I will offer two terrible choice about Papelbon: is he delusional, or is he simply an idiot? Even now, as he concedes to Mariano for the right to close the All-Star game at Yankee stadium, it was more a sign of respect to what Mariano has accomplished, rather than what Mariano is doing right now. Papelbon has 51K and 7BB. But Mariano is 50 and 4! Papelbon has allowed 16 runs in 40 innings, and Mo is 5 in 42! Are you kidding me? Papelbon has also given up more HR (3 to 2) than Mo. On BIP, Mo’s batting average is .232, while Papelbon is .313. While Papelbon is ready to put Mariano out to pasture, Mariano is actually the grim reaper, ready to cut down any closer who thinks he’s already better than Mo.
Papelbon is either delusional in thinking that he’s already a clearly better pitcher than Mariano (he might be a bit better at this point, if only because we automatically expect a guy that is 11 years younger than the other to be physically better), or he is an idiot for speaking as if he wants to step aside to give grandpa Mo one last hurrah.
When I was a kid, I was a huge Redsox fan. I suffered in 1986. At some point soon after that, my two favorite athletes growing up, Tim Raines and Kelly Hrudey, were traded. I also was in college. It was time to move on and grow up from having a favorite team, when the players are so callously treated. No need to excuse a big mouth just because he wears your team’s colors.
If we’re going to accept to ignore everything a GM or manager says about a player as being insincere, perhaps we need to also ignore everything a player says about a peer as being completely ignorant.