When you score 1 run in your last 32 innings(!), you are bound to be frustrated. So what the hell? Throw at guys and see if you can start something. But did you see the pitch to Sexson that started the brawl? It wasn’t exactly a head-hunter pitch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzGywBeWT6Q&hl=en
Yes it was high and inside, but that was only after Felix plunked a couple of their guys. That was 100% pure frustration boiling over on a team that is completely losing it’s mind right now. You can bet the fire sale will start next month at the earliest, and right up until the trade deadline you’ll see rumors of M’s getting shipped off to contenders. I would expect Ibanez’s name to be out there, and maybe even Beltre. You might even see Batista or Washburn for teams desperate for a back-end starter for the stretch run. But at this point, outside of Ichiro, Putz and some of the kids, the rest are all fair game. What a complete disaster this thing has turned out to be, and it’s only May 9th!
The real question is whether or not Bavasi will still be the GM once the fire sale begins. His trade scorecard is pretty underwhelming, and ownership might have serious second thoughts about having Bavasi be the guy to rebuild this thing. It’s not unheard of to change GM’s in the middle of a season either. Cincy just did it a few weeks ago. But the bottom line is Bavasi’s plan has completely blown up at this point, and his track record of trades is less-than-stellar. It might be prudent to hire your next GM now and put him in charge of the rebuild that can begin with trade-deadline deals. If you don’t think rebuilds can begin with deadline deals, well, they can. Look back at Cleveland to see how it’s done. A few years back they dumped their ace, Bartolo Colon, for some minor-leaguers named Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee and Brandon Phillips. While Phillips is now starring as the #3 hitter as a potential all-star second baseman in Cincy, Sizemore has become one of the best outfielders in the AL, and Lee is just out of his mind GREAT right now! The M’s are right at the crossroads now, and yet they still have some bullets in the holster to make some major strides to get better. But this thing is dead, and they have to move accordingly.
Moving on, I’m tired of the off-field stories. You know what’s going on. Roof is in trouble, Hicks to get some jail time, the APR sucked 8 scholies out of the program, blah blah blah. This week can’t end fast enough, and I’m just some lowly blogger. Imagine how some on the inside of the program feel right now!
Anyway, in the spirit of moving on, how about some Okie-State thoughts. August 30th is going to get here faster than we think (check out the new counter to the right that shows you when the ’08 opener approaches). We’ll have an in-depth look at the Cowboy spring session this weekend, but I thought we would look at their head coach and his now-famous “I’m a man, I’m 40” meltdown. In case you forgot….
Ok then.
For some background on the rant, he was pissed at an article written in what has been tagged as “worst paper in America”, the Daily Joke-lahoman, which ripped Gundy’s then-QB Bobby Reid for not exactly showing a good attitude, being a momma’s boy, etc. You can read the article here.
So there you have the tirade. A coach is mad because one of his players was ripped, even though he’s generally a good kid. There was even some applause after the meltdown. You thought it was over, right? Well, it wasn’t. In fact, it turns out the whole thing might have been a big put-on or a fraud to begin with. Reid and his mom said so after the whole thing:
“Honestly, the way I took it, I felt like it was all a front,” Reid says. “That it was all a big show. It didn’t feel genuine.”
Maybe it’s just a bitter player taking one last shot at a coach he and his mom couldn’t stand. Or maybe it really was just a bunch of BS. Nobody knows what was really going on behind closed doors between players and coaches. And Reid might just be a total flake that is tied to his mom’s apron. But when you see a coach with a melt-down like that, well, you wonder what the heck is going on under the surface.
Maybe it’s uber-donor T. Boone Pickens and his billions that put extreme pressure on the head coach to win games. After all, the Okie State stadium is named after the guy who donated an NCAA-record $165 MILLION dollars because he wants his Cowboys to win gosh darnit! Cougar faithful can smile about Pickens and his money, because it can buy a lot of things, but it couldn’t buy Tony Bennett! You might remember that Okie State was prepared to throw the bank at Tony around the Final Four, but we know how that turned out. And Pickens and his billions couldn’t land Bill Self either. It appears that some of the top coaches with a brain don’t want to answer to this guy.
But keep in mind Pickens donated millions towards the “Swift Boat for Truth” guys that smeared the military record of John Kerry. Whether you liked John Kerry or couldn’t stand him, even the most conservative of conservatives generally thought those Swift-Boater types were pretty out of line. But yes, the Swift Boaters are the same group that has hated Sonics minority owner Aubrey McClendon in their midst. While not busy telling everyone they never wanted the Sonics to actually stay in Seattle, McClendon spends a lot of money being “anti” a lot of stuff. He was quoted as saying he didn’t want “those kinds of people” in OKC when they happily sold the Seattle Storm to a local Seattle group. What a bunch of GREAT AMERICANS! Whatever. It’s their money and their belief system, they can do what they want.
ENJOY YOUR FRIDAY!
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