In some contexts, adventurous might seem like a boast. In a Casual Encounters ad on Craigslist, for instance. But as the Royals’ Emil Brown explains to Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star, it’s a bit of a slur for a prideful outfielder.
Emil Brown glanced at the lineup card Sunday morning in the Royals™ clubhouse, turned and observed to anyone within listening distance:
œI guess my defense is good enough for me to be in right field today.
The words came out as a challenge and borderline belligerent. The message was unmistakable. Brown has had it with those who label him œan adventure, or worse, in the outfield, on the bases or anywhere else.
His irritation centers on the media, first and foremost, but not exclusively. His fed-up list includes anyone trashing his skills, be they players or officials with other clubs ” or within the Royals™ organization.
œI hear it all of the time, Brown said. œHe™s an adventure out there. Why? Because I™m actually trying to make plays happen?
œIt isn™t an adventure for (Twins outfielder) Torii Hunter when he dives for a ball and misses it. Then, it™s, ˜Oh, he just missed it.™ He gets the benefit of the doubt because he™s a Gold Glover. But it™s an adventure when I do it.
Brown has been slow-cooking this rant for two years now, and it comes to full boil at the suggestion he might be ticketed for platoon duty after leading the club in RBIs in each of the last two seasons.
œNo, I wouldn™t be (happy), he said. œI™m not going to pretend. I want to be out there. That™s why I™m here. I can™t see how you™re going to have much success in a platoon situation when you can have a (productive) guy out there who can get comfortable in a regular role.
œI think I should be out there every day ” wind, sleet or snow, he said. œI™m a playmaker. If I haven™t shown that yet, I will. Leading the team in RBIs, but even going further than that, there are other things I do besides driving in runs. Just leave me alone and let me play.”
Of the suspended Guillermo Mota, Captain Red Ass tells Newsday’s David Lennon, “”You name me one profession where there ain’t something – where everything is hunky dory and cushy – and I’ll give you a zillion dollars. It’s over with. There’s nothing we can do about it. You’re innocent until you’re proven guilty and you go on with life. There’s guys in jail that probably didn’t commit crimes. There’s also guys on the street who’ve committed crimes. Life ain’t perfect. Deal with it.”
Indeed, there’s all kinds of non-hunky dory behavior out there. Some guys use drugs to obtain a competitive advantage, others try to fuck every teenage girl on Long Island. What are you gonna do?
While the Padres have released Todd Walker, there’s still no word from authorities on what role, if any, he had in the torching of the Nokona Glove Factory.
Unrelated: I posted this little nugget on Curt Schillings stupid blog, though I doubt it will stay up very long:
http://38pitches.com/2007/03/25/q-a-viii-short-one/#comment-2097
You wanna talk about adventure, try walking to work in a mid-summer snowstorm in KC.
That was very original, Rog. And telling someone to “keep their opinions to themselves”? You can’t get more right-wing than that, guy. Curt’s blogging about baseball, you’re stifling opinions. Who’s the asshole?
Actually, the left-wing is more than capable of censorship (usually done for the right reasons, of course). It’s not solely a right-wing attribute. Look it up.
And anyone who bases their whole philosophy of life on some dumb children’s fables written long ago by men, not by Jesus or God, deserves to be taken down several notches. This bozo campaigned for Bush despite the fact that his stance on stem-cell research goes contrary to Curt’s desire to ‘strike out ALS’, a disease which can probably benefit from some of those government funds, asshole.
And maybe this screwed up country deserves a Commander-in-Chief like George W. Bitch if you insist on taking the high road on things like this. While the left is playing by the rules and trying to be nice and polite to everyone and show that they’re much better educated than their opposition, they’re losing all the battles. The cultural war is being won by people who want you to believe in Jesus, and Enron and big oil companies…I could go on. And maybe I just want this bozo to shut up and pitch and do what the Sox are paying him $12 million dollars to do: to entertain me and then shut the hell up and go home and not constantly talk about Jesus in an effort to convert me into a Republican.
Rog, you came out saying something that we all knew about Curt years ago, as if you were the first to notice it. But have you read his blog? It’s got nothing to do with that stuff. I’m more left than Castro, but come on, let the pitcher talk about pitching if wants to. And even if the guy did want to do a blog about trying to convert us all to Jesus, we wouldn’t have to read it!
I completely agree with you that religion is totally made up by people a long time ago, and I’d never back down against Republicans or Democrats who are Republicans in disguise. But you made fun of a baseball blog that’s mainly about baseball with a side of “video game company talk” for being some kind of Jesus-conversion site.
Rog,
Republicans can be entertaining. I could drop some political science mojo, but if anyone figured out the democrats are slurping on corporate cock too, there wouldn’t be any lively debate. Maybe Gerard will let me read John Locke on the next CSTB podcast.
When someone takes a shot at the Republican God Squad, people assume that the antidote is some Democratic magic, but that’s the wrong assumption. And if you are referring to the left-wing, you’re certainly not going to find it at the DNC headquarters. Nope, never even mentioned the Democrats.
I guess you didn’t. Silly me. My long history of poor points continues, but it was this post, or the choking one I was going to strike with a comment, and I’d rather link to Wally George clips than an article on strawberry flavored meth.