The hot stove has reached boiling point. Transactions are in the process of fervent dissection; dollars are flying around Disney land, the Immortal Gil Meche just signed with the Royals… for 45 million????
Indeed, the hot stove is burning a five alarm blaze impossible to contain. Here are two storylines that have specifically attracted my attention.
ON JD DREW AND ACCOUNTABILITY
OK, here’s a perfect example proofing the complete lack of accountability in sports journalism. Everybody is slicing and dicing this transaction. The one positive commentary that I’ve heard regarding Drew came from Joel Sheehan on ESPN NEWS. That’s it, that’s all. Every other opinion is straight from the tired assembly line… you know… questions about his lackadaisical personality, concerns about his injury history, disdainful uproar about his distinct lack of dirt doggedness. But I digress. The main point I’m making here is this: If JD is hitting .350 in May, basically on his way to a monster season, one will absolutely bear witness to a buffoon analyst spouting this:
“Man, all those people knocking the JD Drew signing sure were wrong.”
Or maybe something even more condescending:
” To all those people who knocked the Red Sox signing of J.D. Drew, here’s a reality check… JD is hitting .350 so far this season…”
This is what I’m talking about.
IT WAS YOU, MORONS! YOU SAID IT WAS A BAD SIGNING!
Even when they’re absolutely, positively proven wrong, they pretend like they were right all along. Instead of taking responsibility for what they say, for what they write, they pass the blame onto “all those people”, when it was them all along.
People wonder in amazement why certain athletes hate the media so much. It’s a double standard.
Athletes are expected to be accountable. Their words and actions are constantly scrutinized. Maybe they wouldn’t take their everyday trial by fire so personally if those judging them were held to the same rigid standards.
Signing J.D. Drew, whose motivation has often been called into question, to a 5-year contract is an extremely risky proposition. Time could reveal it as a terrible, costly mistake.
But Drew is ridiculously talented. He doesn’t need to be the man in Boston. He could bat fifth, take his walks, and slide comfortably out of the spotlight.
This could work.
We’ll see.
For now, I’ll suspend judgment on the move, a course of action too often disregarded by the assorted sports analysts of America.
ON THE POSSIBLE RETURN OF ANDY PETTITTE
A return by Andy to the Yankees would work on two levels: sentimentality and sensibility. Pettitte is simply the Yankees best option at this particular time. With Ted Lilly off to Chicago, another benefactor of the Cubs’ blank check policy, a single season deal doled out to a quality starter such as Pettitte is the best play for the Yankees.
It may be the only one left.
Besides, what Yankee fan doesn’t want Andy back? The deterioration of the Yankees pitching staff, from rock solid to suspect, could be traced to the Bombers’ callous treatment of Pettitte during the 2003-2004 off-season. Enamored with Javier Vazquez’s ability and durability, and worried that Pettitte’s taxed elbow would finally succumb to thousands of wrenching cutters, the Yankees coldly cut ties with the reliable southpaw. The move obviously backfired.
His second half resurgence with Houston this past season was heartening, even from a distance. Watching him pitch again for the Yankees would not only evoke memories of glories past, it could further reflect the Yankees’ new organizational philosophy of cents and sensibility.
– Matt Waters
