… but will he name them? The former Cardinals slugger, bankruptcy advocate and pioneering baseball-to-drag-racing dual-sport star went on St. Louis sports radio yesterday to discuss his former team’s shortcomings in the NL Central race, and delivered the sort of measured, mature, grown-man reaction that you’d expect from a curmudgeonly ex-jock a-hole of Roger Staubachian proportions someone who has been there, and knows a little something about not giving a shit. Which is to say that he called the Cardinals — who won’t play the guy with the ninth-highest OPS in the NL every day because Tony LaRussa doesn’t like his dad — a team of quitters. Also of poopy pantses. That’s a quote:
These Cards fans deserve much better. That’s just awful. They won’t admit it, that they’re quitters. If you can’t put a better effort out there on the field, take ’em all out, back up the truck, ship ’em all out and get somebody in here that wants to play baseball. We’ve got one team here [San Diego] going for the title and we’ve got our team going for the toilet. They’ve got poopy in their pants.
Hard to argue with that! Aaron Gleeman of Hardball Talk, feel like giving it a shot?
I’m hesitant to be too critical of any grown man who goes on the radio and utters the phrase “they’ve got poopy in their pants” but the idea that teams have “quit” simply because they’re struggling and underachieving seems a little much. And if you’re going to accuse players of quitting on the team and putting forth “a pathetic effort” shouldn’t you at least have the courage to actually name names?
Which players have quit? Which players have put forth the pathetic effort? Lumping the entire team together means nothing, because clearly some players haven’t quit on anything. Albert Pujols hit .379 with 11 homers and a 1.230 OPS in August, but the Cardinals had an 11-15 record for the month.
Look, Jack Clark played for 18 seasons, made millions of dollars (and blew them all on hot rods). He doesn’t have to answer to anyone, let alone some pencil-necked blogger. So I’ll do it for him — I don’t think anyone on the Cardinals has quit, but I’m pretty sure, judging by the picture on his Yahoo Sports profile page, that closer Ryan Franklin has pooped his pants.
One thing for sure the Cardinal management does NOT take criticism well ,Jack Clark is right and it seems like they just mail it in when they play a team that is under .500
I think that’s the manager’s fault Somebody has to get the team excited and I think a lot of it is LaRussa micro manages too much and a lot of the players don’t know who or when they are going to play and that will weigh on a player
It seems to me that a ball player has enough to worry about with out wondering if he will play the next day or not.
Just because you are the Saint Louis Cardinals you do not deserve to win you have to play the game and they have not done so with second tire teams all season
Now as bad as it seems I love the Cards and have followed then for over 65 years but someone like Jack Clark has to tell them just how it is and he did that. Sometimes the truth hurts BUT there is a cure for this START WINNING!!!
ST LOUS LOSS IS CINCYS GAIN-I HAVE BEEN WAITING 15 -NO,ACTUALLY 20 YEARS FOR THIS GLORIOUS MOMENT,SINCE THE NASTY BOYS SWEEP OF THE AS IN 1990-GO REDS-VENCEREMOS,LOS ROJAS-LES ROUGES,NOUS VINCERONS!