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Selfish and Stupid

MFS62 Feb 27 2006 07:56 AM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Feb 27 2006 08:35 AM

I heard a sound byte on ESPN radio this morning in which ChiSox GM Ken Williams called ex-Sock Frank Thomas "selfish and stupid". Are there any current Mets you would describe that way? Any past ones? Later

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 08:11 AM

All current Mets are saints and genuises, until proven otherwise in a court of law.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 08:12 AM

As to past Mets, it doesn't matter anymore. Get over it.

MFS62 Feb 27 2006 08:36 AM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: As to past Mets, it doesn't matter anymore. Get over it. Hey! Some healthy vitriol is a way to wake everyone up on a Monday morning. Later

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 08:41 AM

Just cutting to the chase here, is all.

Elster88 Feb 27 2006 08:54 AM

Is it absolutely necessary to have a healthy dose of sarcasm interjected into each thread before anyone has a chance to respond? Maybe not for every thread?

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 08:57 AM

Why not name a full list of all the current Mets you consider dumb or selfish? Is it necessary to have a criticism of my sarcasm every time it appears?

Elster88 Feb 27 2006 09:00 AM

]have a criticism of my sarcasm every time it appears? I rarely criticize your sarcasm. As for a list of selfish Mets, isn't that right up your alley?

Willets Point Feb 27 2006 09:07 AM

I don't think anything in this forum could be described as necessarry. It's a whole lot of unneccessarry things. But fun.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 09:20 AM

Elster88 wrote: As for a list of selfish Mets, isn't that right up your alley? That's why I'm giving you the benefit of my experience commenting on Mets' selfish or stupid behavior. If you can't prove it in a court of law, it will be derided, or even cited as evidence of your stupidity or selfishness. The only valid defense I ever read here of Piazza's taking three or four years to move to 1B is that it's not, under a strict constructionist reading of the U.S. Constitution, technically illegal to set a priority of holding the all-time record for HRs as a catcher. Otherwise, it's a slamdunk that he was putting his own personal record above that of the team's record, but we pretty much stuck to the strict constructionist reading and so labelled Mike "unselfish" around here. By that standard, you'll never find a ballplayer who qualifies as selfish. Oh, I also heard a lot of "He's entitled to do what he wants to, he's a star, he's done so much for us, cut him some slack," too.

Elster88 Feb 27 2006 09:24 AM

LOL. Now that's what I was looking for. Ok, so Piazza is added to the list. Who else we got? (BTW, Bret, I'm assuming your answer to my original question is "Yes")

metirish Feb 27 2006 09:28 AM

WOW, to wrangle in the U.S. Constitution with Piazza's move to first base is quite amazing, it could be argured that Art Howe expressed his right under the First Amendment when telling the media before telling Piazza that he was playing first base.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 09:39 AM

Elster88 wrote: LOL. Now that's what I was looking for. Ok, so Piazza is added to the list. Who else we got? (BTW, Bret, I'm assuming your answer to my original question is "Yes") FLASH: Bret Considers Piazza Selfish. You know, Elster, I haven't posted much here in years that didn't have some edge of sarcastic attitude to it, including this sentence. Not saying that's good or anything, just that it's so.

KC Feb 27 2006 09:52 AM

I guess Rey Ordoñez would be a good example. Let’s face it long time posters, Bret has taken it upon himself to make this as much un-fun for me and for Edgy and hides behind anti-Mets sentiment. I was as big a Rey fan as there could be on the internet and I’m man and fan enough to say he turned out to be a real dick and can acknowledge that. In- stead of just posting, every other post by Bret has to be sprinkled with a dose of, "oy, the cpf is this" and "oy, the cpf is that". Selfish and stupid Mets indeed, the irony is so great I nearly soiled myself.

Elster88 Feb 27 2006 09:58 AM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: You know, Elster, I haven't posted much here in years that didn't have some edge of sarcastic attitude to it, including this sentence. Not saying that's good or anything, just that it's so. Eh. I shouldn't be complaining about anyone else being sarcastic.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 10:09 AM

What's with this sick and unhealthy obsession with me? Let's talk Mets baseball, huh?

KC Feb 27 2006 10:13 AM

Please, don't talk to any long time poster here about obsessive behavior.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 10:13 AM

KC wrote: Selfish and stupid Mets indeed, the irony is so great I nearly soiled myself. I wish you wouldn't talk about bodily functions as often as you do, however. It's unseemly. Cut out the filth, would you?

KC Feb 27 2006 10:15 AM

Sal's referring to an email I sent him asking him not talk about his trenchcoat that had vommit and feces on it ... if anyone was wondering. I think it's in the Adam thread.

Rotblatt Feb 27 2006 10:19 AM

]I heard a sound byte on ESPN radio this morning in which ChiSox GM Ken Williams called ex-Sock Frank Thomas "selfish and stupid". Are there any current Mets you would describe that way? Todd Self. (bada bum bum clang)

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 10:24 AM

And now back to our regularly scheduled discussion of Mets' baseball. Ordonez, I would say, was both selfish and stupid. Good call, KC. Piazza was selfish, but kinda cunning, in playing his image so well. He enabled himself to get away with a lot of me-first stuff. (Of course, he also played terrific baseball for years, which also helped a lot.) Bonilla was egotistical (not sure if that's quite the same as "selfish") but not particularly stupid, either. I felt Leiter was very smart, in an evil way, in advancing his own agenda. Willie, I would argue (and have argued) may not be firing on all six cylinders, as managers go. He was a smart player, but he's in a whole nother league now, so to speak, and among managers he may not have the requisite fire-power. Peterson, OTOH, is smart but selfish.

Elster88 Feb 27 2006 10:49 AM

Peterson is allegedly selfish, at the least.

KC Feb 27 2006 11:07 AM

BS: >>>Good call, KC<<< Sod off, assclown.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 11:09 AM

Could we please stay on the topic of Mets' baseball?

KC Feb 27 2006 11:24 AM

No, we can't. I need a condescending attaboy from you like I need the mumps.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 11:34 AM

Then could you at least open a separate thread complaining about how I'm making terrible fun of you and Edgy and whoever else? If you keep this up here, sooner or later someone's going to blame this hijacked trainwreck on me, and we don't want that. I don't anyway. Anyway, I think this "Selfish or Stupid" stuff is way too binary. There's selflsh, stupid, egotistical, evil, clueless (which is different from "stupid" in that it denotes willful stupidity), short-sighted, arrogant, red-assed, two-faced, chickenshit, mean, and probably dozens of other categories of human fallibility that apply to ballplayers--fitting them all into just 'selfish" or "stupid" seems bound to result in inaccurate characterizations.

KC Feb 27 2006 11:46 AM

I don't need another thread, the selfish and stupid thread is the perfect place for me to air my thoughts and that's what I've done. No one is going to blame anyone for anything, especially not for any alleged hijacked trainwrecks.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 11:55 AM

KC wrote: I don't need another thread, the selfish and stupid thread is the perfect place for me to air my thoughts and that's what I've done. No one is going to blame anyone for anything, especially not for any alleged hijacked trainwrecks. "The Red Light Forum Got ill will for another poster? Well, get over yourself. Else, take it here and keep it out of everybody's face. "

KC Feb 27 2006 12:55 PM

You're the one with ill will and the one who needs to get over themselves. It's like you're pitching volley balls to me today - your cute innuendo and clever stuff like let's get back to baseball is horsehockey and everyone who has been here for any length of time knows you're being a phony piece of dog doo by taking that approach.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 01:39 PM

If you don't stop disobeying the clearly outlined rules of forum propriety, I'm going to use my Administrative powers to move this personal invective to the appropriate forum, so we can let people who are interested in Mets' baseball-- and totally bored by your plain hostility to me (that I don't get at all, since I have none towards you)-- get back to the ostensible subject of this thread. Of which, further categories of ballplayer malfunctions might include self-promotion, anger-management issues, cultural or racial misunderstandings, mischanneled competitive issues, or a selective sense of personal privacy/publicity boundaries.

KC Feb 27 2006 01:57 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Feb 27 2006 02:04 PM

I don’t feel particularly hostile towards you, I’m more pissed off that you (what seems to me a couple of times a week) make blanket mis-characterizations of the people who post here. Sometimes it’s subtle and sometimes it’s blatant but it happens far too often. De- railing this thread this morning by making it sound like we are not capable of objectively pointing out some Mets who may or not may be the sharpest knives in the drawer is just the latest example of your continual attempts to put us down. You can deny it until you're blue in the face, but at least some portion of your anti-social behavior is an attempt to make this un-fun for some of us whenever you get the chance to do so.

Nymr83 Feb 27 2006 02:00 PM

who will have the last word...when will edgy move the thred to the red light forum...is bret still naked in florida....stay tuned, folks.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 07:49 PM

It's kinda funny, innit, that in a full day of posting no one, outside of me (going over material I've said once or twice or ten thousand times before) and KC (it's okay if I mention your name? I don't want to condescend or nothing) nominating Ordonez, not one CPFer has suggested a single stupid or selfish Met, past or present. That was my point in my sarcastic first few posts that got KC all worked up--CPFers don't like trashing Mets, past, present, or future, and will go to almost any length not to do so, even if you set it up on a tee like MFS62 did with the timely Thomas/Williams news story. That's fine, I guess, if that's how you feel, but why go postal on me for observing that Met-bashing isn't the most popular sport around here?

Elster88 Feb 27 2006 07:53 PM

More like, CPFers saw the shenanigans going on, and thought to themselves, I'll save myself the headache of posting in there. But go ahead and draw your regularly scheduled conclusions. _________________________ This post had the designation 59) Skip Lockwood

ScarletKnight41 Feb 27 2006 07:59 PM

Elster88 wrote: More like, CPFers saw the shenanigans going on, and thought to themselves, I'll save myself the headache of posting in there. Yup © That pretty much sums it up.

Nymr83 Feb 27 2006 08:03 PM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: CPFers don't like trashing Mets, past, present, or future, and will go to almost any length not to do so Give me a reason and i'll happily "trash" their stats and on field ability. I have better things to do than trash the intelligence of ballplayers long gone. ="Elster88"]More like, CPFers saw the shenanigans going on, and thought to themselves, I'll save myself the headache of posting in there. BINGO!

KC Feb 27 2006 08:44 PM

"oy, the cpf is this" and "oy, the cpf is that" Rinse, repeat as desired.

TheOldMole Feb 27 2006 08:47 PM

] CPFers don't like trashing Mets, past, present, or future, and will go to almost any length not to do so ] Guilty.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 09:14 PM

Bouton's expression comes to mind--"Wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful." At least Mole's honest about his biases. So how again am I inaccurate in claiming that MFS62's thread wouldn't get much of a response around here?

KC Feb 27 2006 09:21 PM

It got no response because you're a buzzkill.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 27 2006 09:39 PM

You're absolutely right. I should wait longer to insert my obnoxious point of view into a thread that's underway. Let it build it slowly, develop its own flavor, and then POW! enter me, shooting sarcasm all around at any target, moving or not. Thanx for the popularity tip.

metsmarathon Feb 27 2006 10:50 PM

rickey henderson was a flippin' idiot. happy, sal? edit: rickey henderson? the hell? i meant to type vince coleman, but it came out as rickey...

metirish Feb 27 2006 10:53 PM

Looking back I think Henderson was a visonary, he knew that poker would become a staple of TV, in the early days that exposure did the gaem good.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 28 2006 06:30 AM

metsmarathon wrote: rickey henderson was a flippin' idiot. happy, sal? edit: rickey henderson? the hell? i meant to type vince coleman, but it came out as rickey... Why would it make me happy that Henderson was a dodo? It made me, as I recall, downright miserable at the time. (Also Coleman.) Oh, I see. You think that if something makes me unhappy, I should want to find a way to spin it so it's less important, or even that it's less destructive to my state of mind, or even that it's not even true that I'm unhappy. My own preference (to identify the source of unhappiness, and try to articulate ways to fix the source of the problem) is clearly what KC has in mind in calling me a "killbuzz" and claiming that I generalize too broadly about the CPF. (Have I got that right, KC?) Can anyone explain a "killbuzz" to me, btw? I mean, I'll plead guilty and all that without understanding what the word means, but just out of curiosity. Is it anything like "killjoy"? (Buzz = Joy?) I'm certainly guilty of that. I examine the pure unadulterated joy of finishing in last place for several years running with one of the highest budgets in MLB history, and I manage to turn that into a downer. In the process, I alienate friends, get myself eased out of a prestigious Admin slot at the CPF, and catch some choice abuse from someone any time I post here, however innocuously. Edgy stops talking to me entirely because I'm the only person who doesn't cave in to his pedantic bullying nonsense, and KC appoints himself Edgy's champion on a shining steed to give me grief that Edgy would have given me if he had the nuts to deal with me, while others profess to be bored with posts like this because they're too long and confused by posts that are shorter because I haven't thoroughly explained my position (for the seven-millionth time), and I somehow find myself catching grief from mm because I tried to answer MFS62's original question here. So, yes, mm, it's very satisfying to me personally to have you cough up the name of a retired Met you consider to be sub-normal mentally. Until I hear otherwise, may I assume that you consider every other Met to be a genius and a saint?

KC Feb 28 2006 07:36 AM

I'm no ones champion on a horse and I'm not going to waste another day with this stuff. I think enough has come out for 24 hours to digest. I think there are times when you fall into number two below, if I'm wrong I apolgize ... Buzzkill (n. or v.trans.) 1. Buzzkill, anything that takes the edge off your fluff, a downer, something that ruins your good mood; a killjoy. 2. (verb) to selectively and deliberately bring down someone's mood by actions that are designed to irritate, annoy or downright upset a person.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 28 2006 08:05 AM

KC wrote: to selectively and deliberately bring down someone's mood by actions that are designed to irritate, annoy or downright upset a person. Guilty as charged, your honor, with an extenuating circumstance. I believe Mr. Wilpon should be indicted as a co-conspirator, or co-irritator, or something, as he has committed the act of "buzzkilling" me repeatedly over the past six years. I only buzzkilled KC and the rest of the CPF to make them aware that this crime was already being committed.

ScarletKnight41 Feb 28 2006 10:25 AM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: I only buzzkilled KC and the rest of the CPF to make them aware that this crime was already being committed. And you have done it. Again and again and again. We get your point.

Johnny Dickshot Feb 28 2006 10:45 AM

Yeah, if your issue is truly with Fred and not KC or Edgy, then take it up with Fred and not Edgy or KC. And for the good of the community, I'd prefer everyone just stick to the topic and not characterizations of who's arguing. Finally, JMHO, this was a dumb topic just begging to go toxic to start with, and pretty belonged in the redlight forum about 15 minutes after it went up.

MFS62 Feb 28 2006 10:55 AM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Finally, JMHO, this was a dumb topic just begging to go toxic to start with, and pretty belonged in the redlight forum about 15 minutes after it went up. When I posted it, I didn't expect the conflagration it became. I expected responses more like the vaild comment about Rey Ordonez. I had thought of him when starting the thread and was curious is anyone else had some examples. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Gary Carter and his almost legendary quest for self-promoting camera time. Sorry if this was hijacked. You know what they say about good intentions..... Later

Nymr83 Feb 28 2006 12:08 PM

MFS62 wrote: Sorry if this was hijacked. You know what they say about good intentions..... Bret usually ruins them?

Centerfield Feb 28 2006 02:55 PM

Getting back to the original post in this thread, I just heard the clip of ChiSox GM Ken Williams last night. To me, he did a pretty good job of making himself seem selfish and stupid. Wouldn't most clubs want their GM to take the high road on something like that? I've been pretty critical of Omar's trades but I feel lucky we don't have someone like this clown calling the shots.

MFS62 Feb 28 2006 03:17 PM

There have been a series of shots and counter-shots since Frank Thomas left the team. Here's some of the history of that mess from prospectus: ] "Kenny left me one message in all this, and that's the day he signed Paul Konerko. He left it on the voice mail, said, 'I know you've seen we signed Konerko, and I can help you try to get signed somewhere else.' Those were the words that came to me over my cell phone. You think I'm going to call back on some [stuff] like that?" --former White Sox DH Frank Thomas, on how he was treated leaving Chicago (Daily Southtown) "I've got a lot of respect for Jerry Reinsdorf, I do. But I really thought, the relationship we had over the last 16 years, he would have picked up the phone to say, 'Big guy, we're moving forward. We're going somewhere different. We don't know your situation or what's going to happen.' I can live with that, I really can. But treating me like some passing-by player, I've got no respect for that." --Thomas "Jerry has done everything over the course of 16 years to protect that man, to make accommodations for him, concessions for him. He loaned him money at times when he needed money. And for him to forget that, for him to turn his back on all that, it's a crying shame." --White Sox GM Kenny Williams, on Thomas' remarks about Jerry Reinsdorf (Chicago Sun-Times) "Believe me, it's not easy to deal with an idiot. And this man over the course of the years has tried my patience and tried and tried it. If he was any kind of a man, he would quit talking about things in the paper and return a phone call or come knock on someone's door. If I had the kind of problems evidently he had with me, I would go knock on his [bleeping] door." --Williams, on Thomas "And we don't miss him, by the way. If you go out there and ask any one of my players or staff members, we don't miss him. We don't miss the attitude. We don't miss the bitching and the whining. We don't miss it. Good riddance. See you later." --Williams "I gave him the trophy [at the parade] out of respect so he could address his fans and address the crowd. We gave him the first pitch during the playoffs, and again, that was another acknowledgment. How many times do you have to kiss somebody's [butt]? He better stay out of our business. He better stay out of White Sox business." --Williams "He's brought us to this point. So, OK, you want to play this game? You've got it. He's the Oakland A's problem right now. He needs to be concerned about Oakland. And I don't even know why the hell I'm talking about a guy--play two or three games in a row first, before you start popping off." --Williams

Johnny Dickshot Feb 28 2006 03:44 PM

I thought I saw where Frank and Kenny kissed and made up. I know you didn't mean for the thread to run off the rails. But I doubt any of us really know who's stupid or selfish. I kinda start with the notion most all of 'em are dumb jocks, but highly successful ones who deserve respect for that much.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 28 2006 08:37 PM

avi wuz here

KC Feb 28 2006 09:16 PM

Tell avi he owes Mrs. Fields two beers if he shows up at the CPF meeting in a couple of weeks.

Bret Sabermetric Feb 28 2006 09:59 PM

On GP? Or did you read what avi wrote?

metsmarathon Mar 01 2006 12:42 AM

oh. i was just hoping to make you happy that somebody was willing to participate in the thread, in an on topic fashion. rickey was prolly dumb too. or maybe just selfish. can you be selfish if you refer to yourself in third person? maybe rickey was really just selfless... bobby bonilla was stupid. i'm comfortable making that claim. that dynamic duo of doc gooden and darryl strawberry. they were both stupid and selfish. everyone else, i'm writing every day to the vatican and stockholm to get them canonized and laureated, respectively. they're all just so saintly and smartly, all because of that pretty blue and orange and mostly black uniform. why, we should distribute mets uniforms to troubled kids in impoverished inner city school districts! they'd all just behave better and be smarter just from wearing the baseball patch with the city skyline on their sleeve! it'll work, i'm telling ya!

Gwreck Mar 01 2006 03:50 AM

Couple of thoughts: I agree with the Ordonez assessment -- I never got the impression that he was much of a team player. The "selfish" argument could apply, and his comments re: Mets fans clearly cover the "stupid" label. I'm tempted to say Rey Sanchez belongs in the same category. As for the Piazza situation mentioned much earlier, saying that Piazza should've been at first 3 or 4 years before it happened is misinformed. Olerud had first through 99. Zeile had it in '00, which bought him '01. Maybe Piazza could've been moved then, but the Mets...not Piazza...traded for Vaughn, who, believe it or not, actually had a reasonable second half in '02. Maybe Mike should've been at first in '03 more than that one game. But that's only a year before he was actually playing there...not the 3 or 4 claimed earlier.

Bret Sabermetric Mar 01 2006 08:00 AM

Gwreck wrote: Maybe Piazza could've been moved then, but the Mets...not Piazza...traded for Vaughn, who, believe it or not, actually had a reasonable second half in '02. Nope. An unselfish player would have offered to play any position the team needed him to play. When Piazza didn't do that, or anything resembling that, and probably let it be known privately that it the Mets wanted him to move off catcher it had another think coming, then quite naturally the Mets filled their 1b hole with a trade. He spent three (or was it four? I guess three) straight Spring Trainings doing this excruciating dance about how it wasn't a good time of the month for him to learn a new position, how he needed to work on his catching technique, how ST really wasn't long enough, yyybbb. Phonier bullshit than that I have not seen outside of Washington DC recently.

Rotblatt Mar 01 2006 09:55 AM

I think it's fair to say that Piazza was somewhat selfish. Although personally, I think there was more pride and stuborness motivating him than selfishness. I mean, he's not stupid. He knew that, in addition to helping the team (if he got to be a passable defender at first) moving to first part time would extend his playing career. But he took pride in his ability to handle 75% of catching duties quite well, as well as in his historical offensive production as a catcher, and didn't want to look stupid by failing at a new position. He's human. I hardly think it's a charcter fault. Still, if he were a more selfless team player, he would've been willing to suffer through the indignities of looking foolish on a daily basis while he got acclimated to first. On the selfless side, he seemed to have accepted his diminishing offensive abilities, and subsequent (though late) demotion in the batter order with grace--which at a minimum separates him from guys like Sosa.

Elster88 Mar 01 2006 09:57 AM

I am really not looking forward to this discussion again. No one's forcing me to read it, I know. It's out of purely morbid fascination that I continue to open this thread.

Bret Sabermetric Mar 01 2006 10:20 AM

i will abandon my hyperbole-filled vitriolic characterization of Piazza's stance in favor of Rotblatt's, which I endorse (mostly). There are probably a couple of hundred ways for a ballplayer to display good character and bad, some of which we'll never know about (like "devoting time and effort and money to charities in secret") and some of which we don't care about. One defense of Piazza I've come across has been "You say he doesn't do A, B, C, or D--but how about E? I know he does E, so Mike's okay with me." This is known as "muddying the waters" and is an effective, if destructive, debating strategy. A.B.C, and D are quite sufficient in and of themselves to cast shadows on his character, if you're willing to go there. To many of us, character is important only in a positive sense (see the Mookie Wilson thread for abundant evidence of a cheerful and voluntary discussion of a Met's character). To my quasi-scientific mind, though, if it's fair to say that Mookie always smiles, and we love the intangible things Mookie's sweet smile adds to the Mets' organization, then it's fair to point out, for example, that mopiness might be considered a negative. Not a huge negative (I don't really care about mopiness, particularly) but if you're counting Mookie's smile, then mopiness must count as well. In my opinion, of course.