By CHRIS RASMUSSEN
Jose Guillen doesn’t care about me or what I think. On Friday, he said the following (presumably with numerous expletives omitted): "I care less about the fans and how they boo me," Guillen said. "They booed me earlier in the season when I was struggling. I could care less. They don't know what's going on with Jose Guillen."
At least he’s honest.
The hilarious thing about the reaction to Guillen’s remarks is that some express shock that a player would show disdain for the fans. I suspect most professional athletes have similar thoughts, although they never dare articulate them.
I don’t care whether Guillen cares about me. Jose Guillen is a professional entertainer. The only thing I ask of him is that he is productive and contributes to a winning team.
Two myths surround sports. First, there is a myth that the athletes are – or should be – wonderful people off the field who care deeply about the audience. This myth resulted from an earlier age of sports journalism in which writers omitted any reference to athletes’ (significant) character defects. They documented Babe Ruth promising a home run to a sick child, not his tremendous irresponsibility and self-indulgence. It is bizarre that we care what athletes think about us – we pay to see them perform for us.
The second myth is that fans possess a sufficient background to effectively criticize their performance because we once played the game with significantly less skill. I don’t know what it’s like to be a professional baseball player, nor does he know how I do what I do. He shouldn’t care what I think about him – generally, I have no idea whether he’s loafing or injured.
I honestly could care less whether Jose Guillen does or doesn’t like the customers who see him play.
He is productive – often in pain – and clearly wants to win. That’s all that matters.
That said, he really should have moved on that fly ball to left center last night.
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Well his criticism of Guillen proves it: Ryan is a racist. Just ask the rabble over at Shysterball, who seem to have the ability to read minds and peer into souls.
Anyway, I agree with what Jose said about being booed. And I also can't believe that Kevin Keitzman referred to him as something to the effect of a terrible human being because of it. I get to watch maybe an inning of every game on average. I watched on the main ground ball at issue where the 1B was pulled off the bag. Anybody who has watched any baseball at all could see by the way Jose was running that he was intentionally going at about 75%. Not hurt running, just running as hard as he knew he could without risking injury. The fans who booed him were uninformed and out of line. If you're going to boo, at least be informed enough to know the guy has a hip injury - and those don't get better over night.
Some have wondered if he is really so hurt, why isn't he DHing or on the DL. Um, ever seen Esteban German play LF? How about that your 3B coach got your regular LFer injured a couple days ago. Put him on the DL, then he'll get ripped for making tons of money and not being able to play through injury. If the manager tells the guy to take one for the team and do what he can without getting hurt, how the hell do you blame the guy for that?
I just think the complete inability to put this incident into perspective is embarrassing and shows that Kaufman stadium is really just full of casual fans. You guys want to drop all your disposable income to boo athletes/entertainers, go see the WWE or the circus.
I think it was the injury, Chimpo -- but that's just me. There's no evidence thus far that his temper causes him to actually loaf like that.
More on this a little later -- probably after the weekend -- but I'm a little shocked that Ryan and Split said that on the broadcast last night.
Yes, yes, I know it was obvious to everyone watching, but given the kid gloves the Royals broadcast team normally gives the team (read: Tony Pena is a great shortstop) and the Milton Bradley incident...
... well, I love the fact that they're still being critical of the Royals.
Do you think Jose's complete lack of effort on the fly to center was due to overexerting himself on the play prior or Aviles completely ruining his throw for the final out?
Ryan and Split seemed to think it was because of his injury, but the first thing I thought about was Guillen's temper and Aviles looking to second on what should have been an out at home.
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