Bernie's Baloney

deweydell — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:40:11 -0000

In reference to Bernie Miklasz's take on TLR. The gist of the column, as I read it, was that TLR is hyperventilating over the media when he should be using that vitriol on his misdirected players. Bernie's whole approach here, and indeed in most of his writing, is establishing a thesis and scurrying around for "facts," or events, that support it, and systematically avoiding those that don't. Never mind that this is the furthest thing from objective reporting, we're taking Bernie here.
The whipping boy this time, in addition to TLR, is Juan Encarnation. In fact, it's one play by Encarnation - his failure to "hustle," in Bernie's view, on a steal attempt. Now I saw that play, and I was disappointed with its outcome - major league players should never go in standing up at second base on a contested steal. It was dumb. But to extrapolate from that the idea that TLR has lost control of his team, the season and God knows what else, as a result of his not hammering Juan about that play, is absurd on the face of it.
"Once again, La Russa found it more convenient to jump a media person rather than hold his players accountable. It continued a season-long pattern: La Russa initiating a conflict with the media while waving off his players' lapses in the commitment to fundamentally-sound baseball." was Bernie's idea. Once again indeed; hell we've got a pattern here! In the same column Bernie also writes: "Albert Pujols fail (sic) to immediately leave the batter's box after scorching a ball to the shortstop." However, suffering from a well known inconsistency, he does not suggest that TLR admonish Pujols, or "take him aside." One gets the feeling that, had La Russa done so, that would have been another Bernie column - the one about his attacking his star player.
Later in the piece, playing up to the crowd, Bernie opines : "How about channeling some of this anger towards millionaire athletes who don't play hard or consistently up to their ability level?" And he calls this whole thing "the rot at the core of professional sports."
What garbage; Bernie, I got one thing to say - you a hack, jack.

SB Nation User Blog: deweydell

Bernie's Baloney