{"id":53,"date":"2007-12-06T11:07:45","date_gmt":"2007-12-06T16:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=53"},"modified":"2007-12-06T12:37:56","modified_gmt":"2007-12-06T17:37:56","slug":"maybe-its-not-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=53","title":{"rendered":"Maybe It’s Not Us…"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know when two people break up, and you think to yourself, “That <\/em>guy\u00a0broke up with\u00a0her?\u00a0 <\/em>Why the hell did he do that, she’s fantastic?”\u00a0 Then, without surprise, she lands on her feet, in an even happier relationship with another guy almost right away.\u00a0 “Of course,” everyone says, “She’s great, remember?”\u00a0 And everything seems to work out for everyone except that first guy.\u00a0 Then, for another seemingly illogical reason, this new guys dumps her too, and it starts to dawn on everyone that maybe all those wonderful things we think about her aren’t really the reality of who she is.\u00a0 Her strengths are for all to see, but her shortcomings are only for those that get close to her–and these shortcomings are just too much to overcome.\u00a0 Well, that first guy, who “made the mistake” finds some vindication, no matter how long it has been.<\/p>\n

Well, when Scott Rolen gets traded <\/a>in the next couple of weeks because he won’t “give back” all of the respect that his new guy–<\/em>the Cardinals and their manager, Tony LaRussa–has shown all these years, the\u00a0first guy<\/em>–the Phillies and their fans–will be the ones feeling that sense of vindication.<\/p>\n

Rolen, drafted by the Phillies in the 2nd round of the 1993 amateur draft,\u00a0won the Rookie of the Year, 4 Gold Gloves and a Silver Slugger Award in his 6 seasons with the Phillies, but parted ways on bad terms <\/a>because Rolen’s relatively thin skin wasn’t able to ward off\u00a0some of the things that were said about him by the fans, the manager, and even some front office personnel.\u00a0 In fact, the biggest dagger to Rolen’s ego was when Dallas Green, the senior advisor to the general manager at that time, questioning Rolen’s drive\u00a0and personality.\u00a0 “Scotty’s satisfied with being a so-so player.\u00a0 I think he can be greater, but his personality won’t let him,” Green said, while Rolen was still with the Phillies.\u00a0 Green also questioned Rolen’s determination to play through injury, making several snide remarks about how it is hard to build a team around a player who is only willing to play 120-125 games per season.\u00a0 As it turns out, though Green may not have used tact in delivering these messages, he spoke the truth, as “Scotty” has only been a so-so player and has only averaged 121 games\u00a0in 5 seasons with the Cards.<\/p>\n

When Rolen was traded to his “hometown team,” he was as happy as a 6-year old on Christmas morning.\u00a0 He must have been thrilled to be able to underachieve, take 40 games off, and never get booed.\u00a0 What a dream-come-true!\u00a0 However, all good things must come to an end, as the Cardinals now\u00a0are actively looking to trade their once “golden boy” because of his attitude and his personality<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0And it does not look like they are even asking all that much in return.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He left Philadelphia\u00a0in a whirlwind of negativity.\u00a0 He was called out by Dallas Green, but everyone just blamed Green and his\u00a0well-documented temper.\u00a0 He\u00a0was called out by his manager, Larry Bowa,\u00a0but everyone just blamed Bowa for his consistent inability\u00a0to handle “today’s athletes.”\u00a0 He was called out by newspapers and talk shows, but everyone just blamed the Philadelphia media’s legendary over-criticism of its city’s athletes.\u00a0\u00a0He was called out by the fans, but everyone just blamed our\u00a0extraordinarily\u00a0notorious propensity to boo and\u00a0the harsh\u00a0 demands we place upon our heros.\u00a0 He was even called out by his teammates on several occaisions for being a “clubhouse cancer,” but everyone just blamed the players for their passive acceptance of a front office that appeared to not be fully committed to winning.\u00a0 No one outside of the Philly–and I mean no one–even thought to blame Scott Rolen.\u00a0 He was, in the eyes of the world,\u00a0a victim and\u00a0was being mercifully “saved” by\u00a0a trade to his hometown team in a market of passive fans who love all players, regardless of the effort they put forth.\u00a0 And now that it looks like we’re nearing the end of what has been\u00a0the very disappointing career of one of the best talents to hit the game in a generation, the truth may be brought to light:\u00a0 Scott Rolen, though probably one of the best “people” in baseball, just is not cut from the right mold to be a superstar athlete.\u00a0 Though he might be (and I actually believe that he is)\u00a0an incredibly “nice guy” and\u00a0a decent, noble, genuine\u00a0human being, from a strictly baseball sense, he is a selfish, spoiled, underachieving player without whom the Phillies have been better off for now six years and counting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know when two people break up, and you think to yourself, “That guy\u00a0broke up with\u00a0her?\u00a0 Why the hell did he do that, she’s fantastic?”\u00a0 Then, without surprise, she lands on her feet, in an even happier relationship with another … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[83,84,85,16,82,86],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb","tag-cardinals","tag-dallas-green","tag-larry-bowa","tag-phillies","tag-scott-rolen","tag-tony-larussa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}