I'm glad Paul Lo Duca never declared his candidacy for anything other than National League All-Star Catcher. I'd hate to see his quotes taken out of context, particularly this quote fragment from Friday:
“I'm a gambler, a racist and I like 18-year-old girls.”
Can't you just hear the rest? I'm Russell Martin and I approved this message — because handling a pitching staff is too important to be left to deviants.
Of course Lo Duca wasn't making his case for the Ty Cobb Sharpened Spike Award, given each year to the player who best exemplifies the worst in humanity. The rest of what he said was:
“That's the perception in New York. Is any of it true? Not an ounce of it, and nobody knows that.”
I'll leave the gambling and 18-year-old girls out of it since that's last year's tawdry news. The other thing? In this hemisphere's most multinational dugout? I don't think that's Lo Duca. I don't know the man and I don't know what goes on behind closed clubhouse doors, but the contretemps that his defensive quote was based on didn't strike me as racist whatsoever.
It struck me as a good journalism lesson.
This is the peep from Paulie that got his latest ball of confusion rolling, as recorded first by Peter Botte and rereported (in the wake of the paper's sudden interest in the Mets) by Adam Rubin of the Daily News:
I'll do this [interview], but you need to start talking to other players. It's the same three or four people every day. Nobody else wants to talk. Some of these guys have to start talking. They speak English, believe me.
It was assumed or inferred that “some of these guys” didn't refer to Aaron Sele or Damion Easley or whichever non-Latino Met whose brain isn't picked to death before and after games. So let's go along with that premise, that Lo Duca meant you should go get quotes from somebody who isn't him or Wright or Glavine or Wagner or Green.
He's right. How can you not notice, if you're an aficionado of game stories and audio actualities, that it is essentially the same five guys who are gone to on a team that at any given moment is at least half Latino? That it's almost never one of the fellows from Puerto Rico or the Dominican or Venezuela?
Is it because Carlos Delgado is hiding in the trainers' room? Because Carlos Beltran seems about as dull off the field as he is usually exciting on it? Or is it because the Mets' beat writers are white guys who, without malice, tend to gravitate to guys with whom they can communicate most easily with the fewest obvious barriers?
Probably a little of each. The players who are dying to talk to the media are legendarily the vast minority in any accent. If you give them an out, they'll take it. The language differences certainly don't contribute to the desire to chat. It's hard enough to say something interesting in English. Imagine trying to be engaging in your second language.
Nevertheless, they're all paid enough to talk. Delgado shouldn't hide if indeed that's what he's doing (as has been implied). As for the other guys who aren't from the U.S., I haven't had a hard time understanding them when a microphone's been thrust to their lips. Beltran is gracious. Reyes explains the game very well, certainly as well as the omnipresent Wright. Gomez, 21, talked his way through the bunt that knocked out Clemens a few weeks ago (making me think Omar Minaya's policy that Met minor leaguers, wherever they're from, speak English and Spanish is one of the best ideas a GM's ever implemented). Franco has obviously seen it all. And if Delgado isn't steamed at his own performance, he's totally the man when it comes to speaking baseball. Perez, Feliciano, Valentin…I've heard them talk if not as often as their Anglo teammates. Their words are as good as anybody else's. Seek them out like you would Paulie's or David's.
I won't pretend to know the dynamic of the Met clubhouse, but everything we've been able to divine says, the occasional entertaining Lo Duca blowup notwithstanding, that everybody gets along reasonably famously. Whether it matters or not, that's reassuring. And as long as we expect to hear from ballplayers before and after games, we may as well hear from as many of them as possible. I don't think Lo Duca's a racist. But I also don't think those whose job it is to interview Mets have been mining every corner of the roster in pursuit of perspective. If there's a scandal in any of this, that's what it is.
Very well said.
I thought there were a couple of contradictory things going on here.
One was the reporter dynamic you've explored better than I would have. And I don't entirely blame the reporters — when you're tired, under time pressures, etc. you're likely to go to what worked before and what's going to be easiest, so you wind up talking to the same small number of guys.
I also don't doubt that some of the Spanish-speaking players were perfectly happy not to have to say obvious things to a bunch of scribblers and camera guys — it's no secret that many/most players regard this as an obligation at best. So you've got two situations that fed on each other. I sensed that Lo Duca's rant started with the first, and then switched, almost as an afterthought, to the second.
I found it interesting that Delgado was much quoted immediately after all this — and wondered if Delgado either thought Lo Duca's comments were directed at him or made an effort to speak up.
Whatever the case, I wish he'd do it more. Delgado's magnetic and whenever he talks, he comes across as one of the game's smartest, most-thoughtful players — and that's in his second language. As for Lo Duca, I'm sure he'll be talking again after the All-Star break. His media boycott last year didn't last too long, and he was getting both barrels.
As tempests go, not so bad: “My teammates are smart. You should talk to them too, and they should be talking to you.” Other teams should have such problems.
I wish the media in New York was a little more interested in the game and less in their meaningless self-generated off-field scandals. Like, today, the Post sports headline was F-ROD–some insipid sensationalism about A-Rod's girlfriend wearing some shirt with an obscenity on it or god knows what…
Seriously, who cares? Why are they so obsessed with creating acrimony where there is none?
You nailed it, Greg; I mean, Lo Duca is rough around the edges, but that's what makes him such a tough player. His temper can make him an easy target, especially for twisting quotes–but he is a good teammate, a fierce competitor, a stoic sufferer behind the plate, and, as far as I can tell, universally well-liked.
You'd think he'd be the type of guy whom New Yorkers appreciate. Maybe we do. But the reporters, for all their preference for interviewing him, certainly aren't doing him (or us) any favors.
Noticed Beltran and Reyes video Saturday night where it usually would have been Lo Duca and Wright (talking about Beltran and Reyes). Reminded me of how neat I kept my room in the days immediately following my mother's occasional threats to throw out my baseball cards if I didn't pick them and everything else up off my floor. Once the heat was off, it was the usual mess.
It will be instructive to notice how much of the carpet we can make out after a couple of weeks pass.
..Hispanic players on the team probably dont give a damn about the American Medias need for quotes and stories. Its not a concern for them, but should it be? Should they be expected to be able to articulate enough in English to do what all American players are clearly expected to do? Why should they be treated differently? You come to the states to make your fourtune it seems its the least you can do. Its not unreasonable..Our GM has never denied a pro-hispanic agenda with this team, and thats OK, I guess. I mean could you imagine a white GM telling the press that he will focus on American born players(white or black) only?
Teams change all the time, players , managers, and GM's come and go. We the fans, however, stay! We are the only true constant! The bottom line for this fan is winning..But all the rest cant be simply dismissed. Its good that this be discussed in the media and between the fans. Its apart of our game and culture..Deal with it!!
Rich
Brilliant, Greg.
I can't understand how you have the time write this blog, considering how much of the time you're in my head…
It's too bad we don't have Floyd anymore. He could keep the whole media crew busy and happy.
But, hey, the more Mets I hear from, the happier I am, in general. Even if they don't say anything terribly enlightening. It's a rare sports interview that does.
P.S. I found out today that one of my doctors treated Tom Seaver recently. Pretty nifty, huh?
I found nothing offensive in what LoDuca said. He was also under a lot of outside pressure from the Commish's office, and was just speaking in general terms about the entire clubhouse that day, IMHO. LoDuca will be sought out by the media because he's straight up and quarterbacks 80% of the games. (can you imagine Jerry Grote dealing with today's media?) As for the Latino players, I think SNY does a wonderful job interviewing Beltran, Castro, et al., after games, and Reyes has stepped out of the segregated Latino ad market and into the mainstream. Help is on the way, Paulie!!!
Maybe part of this has to do with how unbelievably bad most of the interviewers are, especially the TV ones. Their questions are often very stupid and very obvious, choked with empty “take it to the next level” – “make a statement” cliches, and thinly veiled exercises in stuffing the interviewer's opinions into the player's mouth.
The postgame interviews with Willie are downright insufferable — you can tell he hates doing them and you can certainly see why. SNY should fire everybody involved with those and start over.
Get some reporters in there who are more interested in what the players and coaches think than in hearing their own voices preening and bloviating, and then maybe more Mets would step up willingly and talk.
I interrupt this Coors Field embarrassment for the following:
AP: Mets Place Odalis Perez on the DL
ODALIS? FOR FUCK'S OWN SAKE!!!!
“Odalis”? Sounds like a natural male enhancment…
LoDuca went on to say, “Don't edit this for your broadcast so it looks like I'm screaming, 'I killed Earl Milford!'”
(Sorry, that opening put me in the mind of “Arrested Development.”)
My particular pet peeve is when the media starts off a question with “How (adjective) was it…?”
Those questions never contain real content, and the answers they force contain even less.
“How important was is to win the first game of the series?” “How crucial was your at-bat in the ninth inning?” “How key was Gomez' catch at the wall?” What's a player supposed to answer there? “On a scale of one to ten, Jill, I'd have to say that was a seven and a half”?
I think the media has come full circle.
For insightful reading and commentary, I come to F&F, MetsBlog, and Deadspin first.
I only look at the Daily News or Post if the front page has a good chuckle for how badly the Yankees are doing. The “They're Done!” headline was certainly a keeper.
Is Joe Morgan writing for the AP now…?
No, that's “Ambiorix”
Amen.