THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Not sure what you are reading, but I haven’t seen any kind of delusional thinking from Papelbon.

He was asked if he should close, and he spoke very well of Rivera, and said Rivera should be the closer.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/allstar08/news/story?id=3488087

“We’ve both earned that right; us, by winning the World Series and having the opportunity of having our manager there and our team being represented, and Mariano by what he’s done for this role, we’re in Yankee Stadium and blah, blah, blah,” Papelbon said. “It’s not that easy. Everybody thinks it’s a cut and dry answer, but it’s not.

“If I was managing the team, I would close,” Papelbon said. “I’m not managing the team, so it don’t matter.”
...
“I feel I owe a lot to this game and that’s one of the things I owe to this game, to let an elder statesman go ahead of me.”

Yesterday, he was ridiculous.  Today, he toned down quite a bit, but not as much.

"No need to excuse a big mouth just because he wears your team’s colors.”

Agreed.  But that’s not any reason to not have a favorite team, is it? 

Although I have to admit that a lot of people DO think being a fan of their team means defending the players no matter how outrageous their acts.  Especially if by “team” you mean “political party or “religion”.

I don’t follow Papelbon’s footsteps closely, but it does seem to me this is not the first time Papelbon’s words have indicated a less than critical thinking mind behind them.  I think Francona even jokes that his closer’s a doofus.

It seems as if Paps realized (or someone pointed it out to him, or whatever) he said some stupid things and rectified his mistake in a dignified fashion.

To me, contrition and making amends is much more a sign of maturity and intelligence (and whatever else you want to call it) than making a mistake in the first place.

... if there’s true repentance.  Typically, it’s “damage control”, which is what I suspect is the case here.

As a Yankee fan, I wanted to point out that Rivera’s post season era is a very low 0.80, but then I saw Papelbon’s, which was an incredible 0.00!  That said, I think the NYY booing last night was excessive and unwarranted, given that it was the ASG.  Maybe it was loud as the time that Schilling said he wanted to shut up 50K+ yankee fans and the NYY knocked him out in the 2nd inning

Based on the SOSH faithful, it seems that Papelbon’s comments are par for the course:
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?showtopic=34003

#2, is that the quote you’re taking issue with?  If it is, I don’t see what’s wrong with it.

It is a very easy answer, and Papelbon thinks it’s not. 

“Let” an elder statesman go ahead of him? Yeesh… the “elder” statesman may still be ahead of him!  I read it like he thinks Mo is on his last legs, lucky to even be pitching.

10, it sounded to me like he wanted to close, but wasn’t pressing for the gig because he recognized that Rivera ought to given the significance.  What was he supposed to say there?  “Yeah, I’d like to close, but he’s better”?

"Mariano Rivera is the greatest reliever of all time, and he is still on top of his game.  This is Yankee Stadium, and I’d be honored if Terry were to give me the ball in the 8th so I could hand it off to Mo in the 9th.”

I remember the great attitude between Jeter and Nomar a few years ago at SS at the ASG.  That’s what I expect from a professional.  Even moreso here, since it was such a clearcut case.

Barry Bonds once told his ASG manager after playing for 7 innings: we’ve got a stud on the bench who hasn’t played… put him in.  He was referring to Vlad, and it might have been Vlad’s first game.  (You Retrosheeters can try to validate my memory if you like.)

That’s certainly better than what he said, but I still don’t see why what he said was terrible.