David Ortiz felt the need to chime in and provide his view on the AL MVP race after the Sox 9-3 victory over Kansas City on Sunday. After reading through this ESPN.com article quoting Ortiz on the race, I felt dumbfounded, and in all honesty, embarrassed by our slugging superstar. Some very uncanny quotes by Ortiz, who is supposed to be, by all means, a great teammate.
Ortiz on Jeter appearing to have the upper hand because of his team’s success:
“But they’ll vote for a position player, use that as an excuse. They’re talking about [Derek] Jeter a lot, right? He’s done a great job, he’s having a great season, but Jeter is not a 40-homer hitter or an RBI guy. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve done for your ball club, the bottom line is, the guy who hits 40 home runs and knocks in 100, that’s the guy you know helped your team win games.
“Don’t get me wrong — he’s a great player, having a great season, but he’s got a lot of guys in that lineup,” Ortiz continued. “Top to bottom, you’ve got a guy who can hurt you. Come hit in this lineup, see how good you can be.”
Is it just me, or is that blatant backstabbing of his teammates by Ortiz? Come hit in this crappy lineup Derek, and you’ll see how brutally awful it is to have a .300 hitter batting ahead of you and one of the greatest right-handed hitters of all-time waiting on deck. Sure, the Yankees lineup is much, much better and the Sox rank something like 26th in OPS after the break, but is that quote really needed to help the team’s already sinking morale?
Following Ortiz’s whining about how MVP voters should conduct their ballots, he then completely contradicts himself over the next question: should the White Sox Jermaine Dye or the Twins Justin Morneau be considered for the award?
“All depends on who makes the playoffs,” he said. “Dye is having an unbelievable season, an incredible year. Konerko, too.
“Morneau, he’s having a great season, but in Minnesota, there’s no publicity. I bet you nobody knows who he is.”
All depends on who makes the playoffs?!?! Isn’t that the exact opposite of what you suggested before when seperating yourself from Jeter? And Big Papi, when you truly have no idea what you’re saying, please don’t talk about it. If only Bob Ryan or Tony Massarotti knew who Justin Morneau was, ever heard of him, or ever heard of the Minnesota Twins Baseball Club, they might consider Justin as well.
Then he finishes with this doozy:
“I’m right there,” he said, “but I’m not going to win it. They give it to [Rodriguez] one year, even though his team was in last place, so now they can’t play that BS anymore, just because your team didn’t make it. They gave it to Alex that year because of his numbers. But they always have a reason to vote for whatever, so that’s why I don’t worry about it.”
We love you on the baseball field Papi. Just shut up and stick to that, please.
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