Booing Vazquez

Good morning, Fackers. As I'm sure you know by now, Matt and I are unabashed Javier Vazquez supporters. We spent several posts this offseason discussing whether or not his reputation as someone who is not clutch is deserved and during Spring Training, I explained why I was rooting for for Javy to do well this season. Matt wrote the previews for both of his starts this year and in yesterday's, he said:

Yet as Javier Vazquez returns to the Bronx, makes his first home start of 2010, and tries to re-establish a home in New York, I fear he may be facing a higher degree of difficulty than most, particularly in light of those who saw what they expected to see in his first start. I hope that these fans, who are so often told they're the best in the world, don't prove my fears to be well founded.

Of course those fears came to fruition when Vazquez had a poor outing - which was exacerbated by the fact that Joel Pineiro had an excellent one - and a vocal minority of fans decided to boo him. It's not surprising, but the fact that we were expecting it doesn't diminish the ridiculousness of it.

Everyone has a right to voice their displeasure if they want to, but the right to do something doesn't absolve you from being wrong for doing it. Just ask this guy.

Although the type of people who root against their own players are probably not the same ones who read a lot of baseball blogs, I'm glad that Craig Calcaterra noticed the "classless, ignorant" reaction to Vazquez's outing and wrote a short post at NBC about it:

These boos are almost certainly a function of people thinking back to 2004, which is amazingly weak given that, you know, the team just won the World Series five months ago. For a fan base that fancies itself so much more knowledgeable than anyone else's, this was pretty bad.

Obviously there are painful memories of Vazquez that none of us have completely forgotten, but as Craig points out, the Yanks just won the fucking World Series. All grudges concerning 2004 should have been erased by now. I'm not sure it's about "knowledge" so much as arrogance and entitlement, that are the issues at hand though.

A lot of New Yorkers (rightfully) believe that it's the best city in the world, which isn't exactly a controversial point, but it tends to taint the way that some of them follow their sports teams. Success and failure are magnified through the lens of the Big Apple to the point that the city becomes the reason for every poor performance that happens in it, which of course, is bullshit. These are the same people who take it upon themselves to determine who "belongs here" or "can handle it". They feel like they are a part of the city and telling themselves that not everyone can "make it here" as Sinatra said, grants them an added feeling of supremacy.

Rob from Bronx Baseball Daily thinks that the expectations for Javier Vazquez are too high, but I actually believe the opposite to be the case. I think the jerkoffs who booed Vazquez as soon as he gave up runs in the third inning were fully expecting him to fail and pounced on the first opportunity to display their disgust. Obviously we saw the same thing happen with A-Rod in Octobers past as his postseason struggles began to snowball. We even witnessed it in the beginning of last year when Mark Teixeira got of to a slow start and the home fans got restless.

To his credit, Vazquez is keeping his head up and saying the right things ("I feel like it's unfair because that was so long ago"), but I'm still ashamed that people I share a rooting interest with fans would treat someone who is vital to the team with such derision the first chance they got. Clearly they don't think he's cut out to play in New York, but apparently haven't figured out that booing the guy is just going to put more pressure on him.

Michael Kay and John Sterling both love to tell us that Yankee fans are "the best in the world", but that's only true when things are going well. As Neyer says, passion cuts both ways. When it turns sour (or in this case, before it even has a chance to), there is a contingent of Yanks fans who can be some of the absolute worst.

Carl Crawford, "Street" And Prejudice

Yesterday, Rob from Bronx Baseball Daily wrote a interesting and thoughtful post about some comments that Steve Lombardi from Was Watching made in reference to Carl Crawford. Rob made some even-handed commentary on a delicate subject but more has come up since his post was written and I wanted to take a moment to highlight the issue here.

Riffing on a report from Jon Heyman about the Yankees possible interest in Crawford, Lombardi stated matter-of-factly:

Two things about Carl Crawford: One, he’s very “street.” Think Mickey Rivers meets Rickey Henderson – not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Okay, we all know "street" is a another term for "ghetto", but with a slightly less overt racial connotation. You can say that there "isn't anything wrong with that", but the fact of the matter is that you're still judging someone that you don't personally know based on a few things you've gleaned from watching them on TV. Why Steve even felt the need to point this out, I don't know, but he then went on to say:

Two, I dunno why…but… I just have this feeling that he’s one of those players who will be out of the game by the time he’s 35 years old. Granted, that’s not until 2017. And, I could be totally wrong on this… and he’ll be a Tim Raines type who plays into his late 30’s.

I’m just saying… if it were me, I’d be careful about giving him a very long term deal once he hits the free agent market. I’d be very concerned about going more than 5 years on an offer. But, that’s just me…

Lombardi has since denied that those two "points" (if you can even call them that) were connected, but if the hunch about Crawford being out of the game when he's 35 isn't related to the presumption that he's "street", then where did it come from? As Tom Tango is fond of saying, "Summary opinion without evidence is the very definition of bullsh!t". And Steve's statement is either A) prejudiced, B) bullshit, or C) both.

Additionally, given how much Lombardi criticizes Brian Cashman, I find his "analysis" of the Crawford situation to be endlessly amusing. Steve just has a feeling that Carl Crawford won't have a long career, so the Yankees should be careful about giving more than 5 years (as if any long term signing wouldn't be made with care). At least the Yankee GM bases decisions on tangible things that can be supported with evidence, as opposed to abstract feelings and hunches that admittedly can't be explained ("I dunno why... but...").

Predictably, people jumped on him in the comments about this, particularly the use of "street" and Lombardi attempted to "clarify" himself:

Just to clarify the “street” comment…

If you’ve ever heard Crawford interviewed, you probably understand this…

His communication skills are very far from polished. He’s not Jeter, Granderson, A-Rod or Teixiera like in terms of the way he presents himself verbally.

Further, have you seen the huge tattoo on the side of his neck? Somehow, I don’t think you’ll see Mariano Rivera or Andy Pettitte running out and getting one of those too.

Carl Crawford isn't under consideration to be the Yankees' next official spokesperson, so I'm not sure why his communication skills or the placement of his tattoos are relevant. CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and many other players have a ton of tattoos. Joba Chamberlain isn't very good with the media. Would you like to use those things to infer things about their respective characters, Steve?

Late yesterday, Lombardi again attempted to "clear up" his comments about Crawford by citing the fact that he is a fan of Rickey Henderson:

Yeah, Rickey Henderson – who is really no different from Carl Crawford in terms of his image or whatever you want to call it. Really, the only difference between Henderson and Crawford is that Henderson had a better batting eye and played in the majors for a quarter-century whereas Crawford just has eight season under his belt, to date.

So, if I were a racist, explain to me why I have so much respect and admiration for Rickey Henderson – and have a picture of him hanging in the rooms of all my children? Does that sound like a racist to you?

"I respect Rickey Henderson as a baseball player. HOW COULD I POSSIBLY BE RACIST?!?!"

Let's ditch the R-word. Because apparently if you respect an athlete of a certain race and hang a picture of them in your children's rooms, that absolves you from being a racist in any other capacity.

What were talking about here is prejudice, which, to be clear is, "a preconceived belief, opinion, or judgment made without ascertaining the facts of a case". The biggest problem with Lombardi's statements is not the fact that they may or may not have racial connotations. I take issue with trying to draw conclusions about a person's character based a few interviews and the placement of one tattoo.

Rob from BBD actually took the time to ask a Rays blogger about Crawford's reputation as a person, instead of just assuming he already knew what he was about. Here's a bit of what Devon Rodgers from Rise of the Rays told Rob:

From all I have seen he is a very positive person. When I am hanging around by the field before the games, he is always joking around with the players, batboys and security staff. He is very well liked by the players and he is one of the fan favorites.

Kinda makes the tattoo and the PR skills seem irrelevant, doesn't it?

You Gotta Move

There have been some recent movings and shakings in our corner of the blogoverse that we would be remiss not to inform you of.

First, our friend Joe Pawlikowski from River Ave. Blues made his debut over at FanGraphs today which is like, a pretty big deal and stuff - to us baseball bloggers anyway. Joe has been doing great, in-depth analytical pieces over at RAB for a while now and has been especially prolific this offseason, coming up with original topics day in and day out. And that's no small feat this time of year. Congrats buddy and keep up the good work.

Another friend of the blog, Jason from the Heartland is now writing for Bronx Baseball Daily. Jason has been operating his own blog Heartland Pinstripes since early 2008 and started commenting here early last season. His first piece over at BBD is about the potential for salary caps and floors in baseball and how they might affect the upcoming labor negotiations. Like always, he lays out the issues thoroughly and insightfully.

Not so much a relocation as a redesign, Jason Rosenberg gave his site It's About The Money, Stupid a makeover. He's now a part of the Rob Neyer & ESPN's SweetSpot network which necessitated the update and that partnership should start kicking into high gear as the season approaches. For those of you who subscribe via RSS, the feed has changed to - feed://itsaboutthemoney.net/feed/ .

Finally, the site formerly known as Circling the Bases which our pal Craig Calcaterra calls home is now Hardball Talk. It's the same place, but in order to align with the other sites NBC Sports operates, the name was changed. Here's Craig with the explanation.

That's it from our neck of the woods for today. I was going to do a countdown piece for Joe Torre but I didn't get around to it. Sorry, Joe. Maybe next year.