April 13, 2008
Selfish Player?
Jon Weiman on Juan Pierre:
In the fourth inning Saturday, Pierre walked and stole second. With Ethier at the plate, Pierre broke for third - he had the base stolen easily. But Ethier launched a rocket toward Academy Road.
Pierre popped up from his slide to see the ball in air. He took a couple of steps back toward second base, on the theory that if the ball were caught, he'd need to go back. But in the next second, he realized that he was getting a free ride to home plate. He bowed his head and began the slow jog home.
I'm not going to begin to project what Pierre's reaction was - for all I know, he could have been doing cartwheels in his mind that Ethier had just knocked Young out of the game. I'm just talking about the image I saw, the image of a home run being hit and the basestealer looking disappointed.
I actually heard someone describe Tony Gwynn as selfish because he would swing when Roberto Alomar was trying to steal, rather than letting Alomar earn the SB. Of course, Gwynn would get hits on lots of those swings. With the infielders moving, it's a great time to hit.
Posted by David Pinto at
08:53 PM
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Are you kidding? why is this a problem? it shouldn't be about getting the stat, it should be that the runs were scored... now if he had popped or lined out and pierre got doubled off that's different... but if pierre was dissapointed that ethier hit a homerun, thats crap!...
Are you kidding? why is this a problem? it shouldn't be about getting the stat, it should be that the runs were scored... now if he had popped or lined out and pierre got doubled off that's different... but if pierre was dissapointed that ethier hit a homerun, thats crap!...
Are you kidding? why is this a problem? it shouldn't be about getting the stat, it should be that the runs were scored... now if he had popped or lined out and pierre got doubled off that's different... but if pierre was dissapointed that ethier hit a homerun, thats crap!...
sorry, not sure why it posted 3 times
I'm not a Juan Pierre fan either, but it seems a bit disingenuous to say, "I'm not going to begin to project what Pierre's reaction was" and then proceed to do just that.
There are about fifty billion legitimate criticisms of Juan Pierre, his apologists, and the idiot manager who keeps putting him in the lineup at the expense of better players. This isn't one of them.
The other thing is when a guy is riding the pine when he gets in the game he wants to do something so he can play more - I'll give guys a fair amount of leeway under those circumstances. Maybe breaking for 3rd wasn't a great play but it's hard for a lot of guys to sit and be patient
Everyone knows that Pierre can steal a base... but that's about it