Results tagged ‘ david ortiz ’
Rut Roh Raggy. Big Sloppy Papi is ‘F***ng Pissed’.
Remind me again why so many in the media just ignore how tempermental David Ortiz can really be?
Before last night’s game, Ortiz crashed Terry Francona’s press conference with some strong language and poor timing. “I’m f***ing pissed. We need to have a talk.”
What could get the easygoing Ortiz so riled up?
A scoring change from Wednesday’s game. Ortiz was originally given two RBI forhis first-inning single, but after the game Fenway’s official scorer changed it to an error, meaning Ortiz only gets credit for plating one of the runners.
I’m not sure what he thought Francona could do about this, but his interruption led to one bemused manager, one harried PR lady, and the only time all year Chaz Scoggins will see his name in the paper.
As Ortiz was hustled out of the media room, he carried on: “fucking scorekeeper always fucking shit up.” We’ll presume that Ortiz simply wanted to preserve Austin Kearns’ fielding percentage from an iffy call, rather than being overly concerned with a single RBI in a season which he’ll end with more than 100.
Scoggins went on the radio this morning to defend his error call.
“About two innings later, the Cleveland PR guy came over and told me their pitching coach had called him and told him that [Red Sox third base coach Tim] Bogar had put up a stop sign on Youkilis. I told him I didn’t see the stop sign and I had looked immediately to see what the coach was doing and he’d waved him home. He said, ‘Well, it’s on tape somewhere.’
“So, I went back and reviewed the NESN tape. On their replay, sure enough, you could see Bogar throw up his hands to stop Youkilis until the ball was bobbled by Kearns, and then he waved him home. It was only an instant. He never really got his hands up all the way. But clearly, his intent was to stop Youkilis, even though there were two outs, until he saw the bobble.
“At that, I felt I could not give Ortiz two RBIs on that when the intent was to stop Youilis at third.”
If you watched the replay of Ortiz’s single in Wednesday’s first inning without any context, you could understand why Big Papi thought it was a bad reversal. The hit seemed pretty straight-forward, giving Ortiz 70 RBI for the season when Adrian Gonzalez scored from third and Kevin Youkilis came around to score from second.
And frankly I don’t see much of an indication that third base coach Bogar “threw his hands up” for Youklis to hold at third, it looks more like his left hand might have been raised rather half-assed at best.
That being said. Stop being a bitch Papi. How would you say it? ”Take it like a man“?
Your organization above all others treats the RBI like it deserves to be treated. An overrated stat. The only time they even look at the thing is when it is in the context of RBI%, a stat that tracks the % of potential RBIs you actually drive in.
For example this year Adrian Gonzalez has driven in 91 of 362 potential RBIs for a percentage of 20.17, good for 8th best in MLB. The Texas Rangers Josh Hamilton leads baseball in this category, having cashed in RBIs 22.89% of the time in 2011.
The RBI is trivial David. Your team didn’t lose a game because of it (Youklis, after all, DID score the run) so what is the big issue?
Maybe it’s time we stop treating this guy with kids’ gloves just because he has a nice smile.
While we are at it we can ask him when we’re going to see that follow-up interview he promised to give us upon “learning” he had failed a test for performance-enhancing-drugs in 2003.
Ortiz’s faux-admission press conference provides a juxtaposition for the steroid era, one which we should use to measure the man’s character.
When it was leaked out that A-Rod had tested positive, he joined Andy Pettitte, Jason Giambi, Chuck Knoblauch and others as players willing to admit to illicit drug use. David Ortiz joined Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and, to a degree, Roger Clemens as players never willing to admit to any wrong-doing.
The players who dance around the issue curry no favor with anyone while the players who fess up to something of the truth earn a modicum of respect. In the end, that’s how it should work.
But somehow Ortiz gets a pass. Clemens, Sosa, Bonds et al are all persona non grata in the baseball world, because they refuse to admit wrong doing. Ortiz took the same tact and nary a peep. Go figure.
Though years have elapsed since Game of Shadows, the Steroid Era won’t end. Names drip out. Players don’t know how to respond. One day, it will all be over, and with each name, it inches closer to the end.
Yet, Ortiz’s PED dance, coupled with the parts of the media who have yet to press him on the issue for whatever reason, show just far away that day is.
For yet another example of why Big Papi isn’t quite the “affable, lovable guy” many members of the media make him out to be go ahead and watch the video right here.
UPDATE:
According to ESPN Boston the thorn in Big Papi’s side may be, drum roll puh-lease, a contract issue. Namely the fact that a renewal of a contract for him has yet to be broached by the team. Color me surprised.
Just when Red Sox fans thought it was safe to go back in the water!
For Red Sox fans there weren’t too many things to cheer about in the month of April.
The team got off to a horrendous start, plagued by a surprising lack of pitching and a not-so-surprising lack of offensive punch.
David Ortiz is once again showing himself to be “Big Pop-up” as opposed to “Big Papi” and the offseason acquistions of Scutaro, Beltre and Cameron have provided minimal run production.
Granted, they were chosen to emphasize a new strategy of “run prevention”, but they have struggled in that regard too. Bad pitching, shoddy defense and a lack of offensive production are not the traits quality teams are known for. Needless to say, this is NOT a quality team, right now.
Now comes word that a more ominous threat to Red Sox nation lingers on the horizon. Russ Smith at Splice Today notes that the a poor season by the Red Sox might cause John Henry some financial trouble:
“John Henry, the Sox’s principal owner, cannot be a happy man, for though he loves baseball, it’s safe to say the billionaire (a proud liberal, by the way; a gratuitous aside, granted, but I’m in a grumpy mood) loves profits even more. And the Sox, who’ve sold out Fenway Park for an MLB record-setting 763 consecutive games (as of May 2), are headed to an unfathomable .500 season, which means the sellouts will end, the revenue stream slows down, and disgust will envelop the greater New England territory all summer long.”
Russ talks of a hope that maybe he can take solace in the fact that losing drives the bandwagon fans away. He fails to account for the fact that those are the fans who are driving up ticket prices and accordingly paying the bills. If the John Henry bubble collapses, it could be years before the Red Sox are able to pay top dollar for talent again.
As much as they like to think of themselves as “the little engine that could”, the Red Sox are nothing more than the New York Yankees Lite (see the John Lackey deal, Dice-K’s contract, the Lugo & Renteria “throw away deals” etc…).
The problem lies in the fact that Henry’s group was highly leveraged when they bought the Red Sox, so they need to keep the team winning to pay the bills.
This is why Theo Epstein once quit the Red Sox. He wanted to step back for a season and regroup, to set the franchise up for the long haul. The people who control the money wanted to win each & every year, because that’s how they pay the bills. If fans stop buying Red Sox Nation memberships, stop watching NESN, or decide that a few hundred dollars for a couple of good seats is too much, the bubble will quickly burst.
At this point you run the serious risk that the Red Sox suddenly became worth less than the amount borrowed to purchase the team? It happened to a whole lot of people who bought houses at the peak of that bubble, and it could happen to Boston.
People think of the Red Sox now and all they see are sold out games, but it wasn’t that long ago when you could walk up to the ticket booth the day of the game and get a decent seat. It even wasn’t all that long ago where you could pretty much sit where you wanted in the damn park.
There is a lot at stake right now, more than just the teams position in the standings this season. A difficult season can have minimal negative impact on the long-term health of the franchise. A horrible season, i.e. one in which the Sox don’t get demonstrably better (and sooner rather than later), could cripple this franchise for some time to come.
And you people in New England thought the only highly leveraged investments that screwed you over came out of the offices of Goldman Sachs. D’oh!
Let He That Has Not Sinned…Steroids Accountability Lies With All of Us
For the first time in his life Arod has had to go "off-script".
As the dust continues to swirl around the “A-Roid” issue in Major League Baseball, I continue to sit back and marvel at the sheer hypocrisy that is flooding airwaves and bulletin boards alike.
One by one, writers, fans, major league baseball executives, and even, laughably, owners (yeah, I’m talkin’ to you, Tom Hicks) have all lined up to take their pot shots at the ever-growing list of major league baseball players that have been found out to be “cheats.”
Now make absolutely no mistake about this: I cry for the game. I truly do.
All of my friends only “kind of laugh” when they hear me use my all too familiar line, “Baseball isn’t a sport to me; it’s a religion.” Thus it saddens me to see my beloved pastime suffer from yet another self-induced blow of the performance-enhancing drug variety.
That being said, nothing gets me more irritated than this “holier than thou” attitude that is being dumped on the players involved in this whole fiasco.
I am sick and tired of these so-called “moralists” acting outraged at the fact that these players could do such a thing. Everyone under the sun is just piling on these guys like they are the vilest of the vile, insulting our sensibilities at each and every turn.
What's that? Steroids? Never heard of 'em.
To them I say, “Where were you when all of this was going on?”
Where were you, mister commissioner, when you presided over the dirtiest era the sport has ever seen? You were busy patting yourself on the back as revenues exploded like balls off of Barry Bonds’ bat, that’s where.
And where were you, Major League Baseball Players Union chair Donald Fehr? You were too consumed with protecting the players that were juiced up, as their ill-gotten productivity was driving up revenues that you could secure in your collective bargaining agreements.
Where were you, the fans, as record after record fell at a meteoric rate? As prodigious home run after home run left the bat of players like McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, and Rodriguez, did you once speak out in protest of what should have been all too obvious?
Even now as we mire through this never-ending saga of dishonesty and betrayal, why did it take an economic recession the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the late ’20s to finally drive down ticket sales?
Throw in a lack of accountability too!
And lastly, where were you, “Mister/Ms. Sportswriter” (and yes, my finger is pointed squarely at myself as I type this), while all of this was going on? Was it not you that was closest to all of this without actually being on the inside? Were you not there, day after day, chronicling all of this without so much as a peep about PEDs?
Who had greater access to the game, its players, its owners, and all of its “dirty little secrets” than you? Yet, save a handful of cries that went completely ignored, not a word was said about what from all accounts was “a culture that was prevalent throughout all of major league baseball.”
Yet here we are, all of us looking down our noses at the players involved, chastising them as cheats, narcissists, and greed-fueled monsters devoid of any morally redeeming value.
We were all partners in this crime that has tarnished our wonderful game.
This looks oddly familiar to the late 90's.
MLB executives, the players union, and owners that did absolutely nothing to stop this; players that not only used the PEDs but those that turned a blind eye to what was obviously going on; fans that uttered every “ooh” and “ah” at the towering home runs that dominated the landscape of the era; and yes, the so-called “journalists” that somehow couldn’t figure out what was going on right under their very noses.
Alex Rodriguez and others should indeed be held accountable in the court of public opinion for what they have done.
But then again, shouldn’t we all?
