Upon Andre Ethier reporting to Spring Training yesterday, an encounter with Southern California baseball scribes turned testy in a hurry. Not bird-flipping ugly, but awkward enough, reports the LA Times’ Dylan Hernandez, who described the Dodgers outfielder as “particularly impatient with questions regarding his increasingly uncertain future.”
Ethier wasn’t smiling. His face was expressionless. He didn’t say much. Whatever he said, he said quickly.
“I’m just giving you honest-truth answers,” he said. “I’m not your buddy, you’re not my buddy. We’re not going to sit here and have a bar-top conversation.”
Ethier wouldn’t say whether he would be open to negotiating a contract extension during the season with a new ownership group should the Dodgers be sold.
“It’s not my decision to make,” he said.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said when asked about Don Mattingly’s assertion that his temper resulted in 100 wasted at-bats.
Told that fans probably wanted to hear more from him, Ethier replied: “I’m here today to prepare hard, play to win and help the team win and that’s my ultimate goal. You’ll hear from the training staff if I’m not ready to go.”