Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Idiot of the Week

B.J. Upton is my Idiot of the Week! Here is a kid with all the tools to be a great baseball player for many years and the only thing standing in the way of him and greatness is himself. Last night I was disgusted to see him not hustle out of the box last night on what he thought might be a wall scrapping HR and lolly gag until it hit the wall then he proceeded to hustle just a little but a heads up play by a true great player, Mark Texieira, trailing Upton and tagging him out just before reaching the bag. It reminded me of what really irks me with some of today's ball players. They get their money and think they are better than most of the other players so they try and get the spotlight on themselves instead of doing whatever it takes for your TEAM to win. This is not the first instance in which Upton hasn't hustled and cost his team. He had been benched 2 times in the last 3 weeks for it. I applauded Joe Madden for doing it! It sends a message that no one player is above the TEAM. This is a first place team who is winning with a low payroll and mostly players who are unselfish and willing to do whatever they need to do to put the TEAM in front. Players like Carl Crawford, Evan Longoria and Carlos Pena. B.J. needs to get himself together and realize he has great potential and needs to be remembered for how he played the game the right way and not for being the guy who got benched for not hustling. In his short career he has not lived up to his draft hype, in my opinion alone. He had to be moved to the outfield because of his horrific defense and also has had a couple scrapes with the law. Now he is being chastised for not doing the easiest thing in baseball. Running.

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