XM MLB Chat

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Character matters--See the Mets---NY Times

"Before the Philadelphia game with Washington on Sunday I listened to an interview with Pat Gillick, the Phillies’ general manager. Gillick was once Toronto’s general manager and won five division titles with them along with two World Series.

  • Gillick said that for many years he felt that talent was everything. But he said after watching Philadelphia overcome injuries and other adversity this season and overtake the Mets, he had concluded that talent was overrated.

Talent is important, he said, but what is more important is mental toughness, character, passion and the desire to win.

  • “These are things that cannot be measured,” he said. But perhaps they can be, in the space and time it takes for a team to collapse with 17 games left to play.

Moving forward, Minaya and Randolph may want to use a new measuring stick."

Jose Reyes failed to run out an infield hit on Saturday. My question to another NY Times alleged "reporter:" Why didn't you report all the sabotage that has gone on against Willie Randolph? How would you do your job under such circumstances? Oh, right, you're in a union. (sm)
  • P.S. If ESPN were aware of the reality of "character," it wouldn't have considered holding its "Townhall" meeting to discuss Michael Vick. Since then, even more has come out about this individual-- as happens with those lacking "character." (It's normally obtained from what is called "parents.")
Finally, the always perfect when he writes about baseball, George Vecsey says:
  • "....José Reyes deteriorate(d) into a swaggering, helpless juvenile in the final month of the season. Somebody — probably Omar Minaya, the general manager — had better sit with Reyes in the Dominican Republic in November and explain the next 10 steps to growing up as a major leaguer. Reyes was 0 for 5 yesterday, with four balls in the air.
From George Vecsey's NY Times column, "Perhaps Glavine Needs Ticket to Life he Once Knew," 10/01/07. (Via the 'Midnight Train to Georgia.')

Stumbleupon StumbleUpon

posted by susan at 9/30/2007 11:10:00 PM

2 Comments:

  • I'm glad you wrote about this. The fact is every time a player does poorly they attack the players character and their personality. Their doing it now to the Mets, Jose Reyes doing well is so much fun and brings so much energy when he dances when he slumps hes the ruination of western society. They were doing it to the Yankees, they do it to all the time to Arod unless hes having a season DiMaggio would be proud of. Remember the horrendous things they said about how week minded Giambi was when he was outed as steroid taker and hit about .150 in April of 2005 then he hit then he became a lovable courageous person again. They talk in glowing terms of the Yankees character now and if the Indians beat them they'll be writing how stupid Cano and Melkey are, how awful Giambi and Mussina are as human beings and becuase their such tuff guys they'll try to run Torre and Arod out of town again. This vile garbage is then repeated by people calling Wfan all day.

    By Blogger james, at 11:55 AM  

  • You make a good point, James,and none of us knows what really goes on. And I'm not talking about what a reporter observes in a locker room or hears in a manager's comments. On Jose Reyes, he has been a big catalyst in the past, but he picked a bad time to do something like not running to first base. Aside from everything else, Reyes makes Willie Randolph look bad. Not good, not fair.

    By Blogger susan, at 12:57 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home