Shank aka CHB calls out David Price calling out Eck

[Captaincoop]

Just had a thought: Eduardo might be one of the most popular players among his teammates. He seems to be always among the first in the dugout to congratulate, hug a fellow pitcher after a good outing, things like that. And, you had to feel for the guy just coming off an injury. If Eck had gone "Yuck" over, who else, I don't who, but certainly a guy like Sandoval, Price might not have said anything.

So you're buying the narrative that Price is a hero for standing up to Eck?

He's a color commentator, he should be able to occasionally offer commentary that isn't 100% positive.

Reasonable people can see it differently, but regardless of what he said, if that account about the charter is accurate, Price handled it poorly and acted like a jerk, IMHO. Addressing it one-on-one like an adult was an option.

 

[PaulinMyrBch]

You might be right about this. But, if this wasn't a big deal why hasn't Eckersley or Price said, "Hey, we we're just fooling around. Price got a little salty at what I said, but it's all good. These things happen from time to time on baseball team."



I'm certainly not clutching my pearls here, these guys have been around enough locker rooms to know how things are there. But to say that this is SOP for athletes is letting Price off the hook very easily. It's just another check mark under the column of dumb things that this guy is doing to himself. If he doesn't like attention and wants his play to speak for him, that's fine. Quit acting like an asshole and self-sabotaging himself. In other words, if you don't want to be trolled, quit feeding the trolls.

I really want to like David Price. He's a hell of a pitcher, he's smart enough to have attended Vanderbilt and he seems to have interests outside of baseball. That's all awesome. But he's making it really difficult to root for him and I'm not exactly sure why.

I tend to agree, but its likely that any public statement or message by either one of them just creates new questions and they know this so its better if it just dies. That would be my guess as to why they've moved on. I'm guessing with Price's presence on social media, we might see a tweet or pic out in a month or so where him and Eck are in the same photo making light of something. But I doubt anyone on the inside wants to make any more of this public that is already out there.

 

[joe dokes]

So you're buying the narrative that Price is a hero for standing up to Eck?

He's a color commentator, he should be able to occasionally offer commentary that isn't 100% positive.

Reasonable people can see it differently, but regardless of what he said, if that account about the charter is accurate, Price handled it poorly and acted like a jerk, IMHO. Addressing it one-on-one like an adult was an option.

This is where I am. Eck's shine as an analyst hasn't been there for me this year, but that's irrelevant to the point. Even if Eck had said something objectively unreasonable, that's just not how you handle it. But I also dont see it as some sort of referendum on the toxicity of the clubhouse, or 25 cabs or any of that nonsense.

Interesting that Shaughnessy, who is rarely around the team, was able to put together sources to outline what happened. Cafardo, who is with the team about 10 times as much, not.

 

[EvilEmpire]

Interesting that Shaughnessy, who is rarely around the team, was able to put together sources to outline what happened. Cafardo, who is with the team about 10 times as much, not.

I suspect Shaughnessy has less access to lose among players than Carfardo. I think Cafardo could have written that article if he had wanted to.

 

[JayMags71]

So you're buying the narrative that Price is a hero for standing up to Eck?

He's a color commentator, he should be able to occasionally offer commentary that isn't 100% positive.

Exactly. I loathe CHB, and I'm usually disinclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. Had Price blown up at Carfado, or any number of beat reporters or columnists I'd be more inclined to take his side. Blowing up at Eckersley is a different kettle of fish. In addition to being a color commentator, Eckersley's a Hall of Famer who played the game at a very high level, not a JAG like Merloni or Remy.

Even in a charitable reading, Price comes off as pretty immature. He needs a better response to criticism.

 

[Snodgrass'Muff]

It doesn't seem like price is alone as reading that made it seem like a good majority of the players hate Eck

David Price is an asshole? If only we could have had some way to have seen that coming!

And the players are taking a teammate's side in a dispute with a member of the media? Damn. Mind blowing.

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

Chock full of racial subtext, as is Shaughnessy's custom.

Where. Show your work.

Also, for all of the people who are claiming that this isn't a big deal, why has John Henry, chairman Tom Werner, CEO Sam Kennedy, and Dave Dombrowski all apologized to Eckersley? Or are they in on it with Eckersley?

Guys, baseball players do shitty things all the time. It's fine. Some people are jerks or do jerky things. Price hasn't murdered anyone, so no one is saying that you should boo David Price during his next start at Fenway. But to say that there's nothing going on here or that the media is solely to blame is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Al Zarilla]

So you're buying the narrative that Price is a hero for standing up to Eck?

He's a color commentator, he should be able to occasionally offer commentary that isn't 100% positive.

Reasonable people can see it differently, but regardless of what he said, if that account about the charter is accurate, Price handled it poorly and acted like a jerk, IMHO. Addressing it one-on-one like an adult was an option.

No hero, just pointing out that Eck might have gone after, if you want to call it that, a guy Price likes a lot on the team, so Price struck back. Bottom line, give me a guy like Eck, who expresses his opinion a lot, a million times over a stats spouter like OB.

 

[InsideTheParker]

Brian Kenny right now on mlbn calling out Price for bullying Eck and for his history of dealing with the press, including his blowing off local media guys in P'tucket.
Closed by saying that Price is being unprofessional and that the Sox are not dealing with him properly. Apparently the new rule is that the nesn and eei guys are to enter the plane first and go to the back, to avoid contact with the players. Can this be true?

 

[curly2]

Just had a thought: Eduardo might be one of the most popular players among his teammates. He seems to be always among the first in the dugout to congratulate, hug a fellow pitcher after a good outing, things like that. And, you had to feel for the guy just coming off an injury. If Eck had gone "Yuck" over, who else, I don't who, but certainly a guy like Sandoval, Price might not have said anything.

If Price were really concerned about Rodriguez and the "Yuck" he would have given Eckersley a chance to explain himself -- or inform Eck that E-Rod was more concerned about getting in his pitches and not the result -- instead of telling him to “Get the [expletive] out of here!’’

Or, of course, he could have had it out in private, basically saying, "If you have a problem with Rodriguez, you have a problem with me." Instead he set him up basically for an "ambush" in front of a hostile crowd.

Captaincoop is right: Analysts need to be able to speak their minds. This is pro sports, grown men are playing, they get paid and people keep score. It can't be "Good job, good effort" like it should be for kids' sports.

It can't be like the "Twilight Zone" where every person who has a bad thought is banished to the cornfield.

 

[TheoShmeo]

David Price is an asshole? If only we could have had some way to have seen that coming!

And the players are taking a teammate's side in a dispute with a member of the media? Damn. Mind blowing.

Meh, it's not mind blowing but it's still not a ho hum affair, either. If the CHB's account is accurate, saying "get the F out of here" repeatedly to a guy like Eck is beyond the pale. That Price's teammates cheered that boorish behavior is more than just taking a side. It's participating in Price's silly behavior. And it sucks.

It's blindingly obvious that if Price wanted to address a perceived wrong by Eck, he had at least ten other easy alternatives that did not involve grand standing. He chose something that was designed not to be constructive and only to make him look good in the eyes of juveniles. Said differently, backing up this particular teammate behavior was both noteworthy and douchey.

Separately, the narrative that this is one of those "only in Boston" moments is nonsense. Price's entire body of work -- from the incessant tweets, to the saying he will not speak with the media, to his general surliness about the fans and Boston as a whole, to his playoff failure, to his silliness with Ortiz before he got here -- informs how we view this latest crap. If this was a one off incident, I think it would have gotten less attention. It still would have been covered because it's presumably unique for a star player to so severely isolate and lambaste a former HOF pitcher who is one of the team's color commentators. But the larger picture with Price, especially given how critical Price is to the team's success, is what makes this a story. It would be covered differently in Tampa and KC but it would be a story anywhere.

 

[jungleboy]

I suspect Shaughnessy has less access to lose among players than Carfardo. I think Cafardo could have written that article if he had wanted to.

And just think - if he had, we would have received the added bonus of J.P. Ricciardi's thoughts on the incident.

 

[E5 Yaz]

Two things about this trouble me more than the surface optics:

a. I suspect that if CHB or Lauber or Drellich wrote about ERod's rehab start and expressed concern over the results, and Price went after them, it would be much less of an issue. But going after Eck as if he's a true member of the media strikes an entirely different tone. Yes, Eck is an analyst now; but Price and the players seem to have little respect for him beyond his current job (the "greatest pitcher ever" comment in the CHB report was especially childish.)

2. CHB points out that Farrell has yet to speak with Eck about the confrontation. That's tacitly condoning Price's actions, sending a signal to the rest of the team that Farrell sees little need to bother with such triviality. The "us against the media" mentality if fine for guys making $30M a season; but it's a questionable tactic for a team with so many young players

 

[CarolinaBeerGuy]

JBJ's wife clarifies:


@erinhbradley
I appreciate that you COMPLETELY left out the part that Eck & J rectified their "situation", that happened 2 years ago, that very night.

 

[smastroyin]

The only subtext I have is that I don't think Farrell is a very good leader of men and any stories like this where the team comes off as undisciplined jackasses feeds into my confirmation bias. Since he's also not a great tactical manager I do wonder what he's doing here, and if he would be here if he wasn't Tito's buddy. Whatever, the Red Sox won a World Series with him, I know.

Price is a dickhead. We knew this before he signed here. He takes everything personally and deals with none of it well, and he's not as funny as he thinks he is, and he seems to take no joy in anything. He's like Beckett or Lackey but with tweets. If he pitches like a Cy Young candidate it's not going to matter.

 

[ricopetro6]

how would Price even know that Eck said "Yuck"?..Is someone listening for Price for anything negative that Eck might say during an entire game?...seems so childish.

 

[Van Everyman]

Also, for all of the people who are claiming that this isn't a big deal, why has John Henry, chairman Tom Werner, CEO Sam Kennedy, and Dave Dombrowski all apologized to Eckersley? Or are they in on it with Eckersley?

I think the Sox brass apologizing to Eck speaks also to how highly they think of him. Eck has handled all this very well, BTW -- he was kind of joking after the initial blowup on air about how the upcoming flight "should be a happy one" with a smile (they had won that series). And, unless I'm misremembering, he didn't say anything to the media about the JBJ thing at the time that happened.

Again, let's be clear: Shaughnessy is absolutely trolling the shit out of Price here. That doesn't mean what he's writing isn't accurate. But as Mrs. JBJ just seemed to have confirmed, it isn't necessarily complete either.

 

[SouthernBoSox]

I just have a really hard time believing this is the entire story, so I am choosing to reserve judgment. Also, I've learned through the years that Dan Shaughnessy ALWAYS has motive beyond truth. Always. So it's really difficult for me to form an opinion based on his column. It just logically doesn't add up for me.

 

[Minneapolis Millers]

...Price is a dickhead. We knew this before he signed here. He takes everything personally and deals with none of it well, and he's not as funny as he thinks he is, and he seems to take no joy in anything. He's like Beckett or Lackey but with tweets. If he pitches like a Cy Young candidate it's not going to matter.

I tend to agree. Williams was a dickhead. Yaz, too, for the pre-67 part of his career. But if you play well enough, fans won't care.

I think all of this is overblown. Personally, I like color commentators who are willing to be objective (and allowed to be, by the team), so I enjoy Eck most of the time. But he's not immune from blowback from the people he criticizes, just because he also was a good player. These players aren't accountants - they live and perform in an amped up world, ruled more by physicality and emotion than the vast majority of jobs, and they get critiqued far more than the average Joe. Some learn to ignore it and/or handle it well, but many (like Price) don't. Add in that they're millionaires who live in their own bubbles and are accustomed to being idolized, and it's not surprising that they would seem to the rest of us to be overly "sensitive." They probably are. But so what? This dynamic isn't new, just the manner of reporting on it and, moreso, discussing it.

No one was physically attacked. At the end of this particular incident, the worst we have is some verbal harassment, in private, on the charter plane. Eck's feelings might be hurt. Price might be disliked a bit more. Who cares? But for CHB's belated piece, this would have blown over by now.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

Meh, it's not mind blowing but it's still not a ho hum affair, either. If the CHB's account is accurate, saying "get the F out of here" repeatedly to a guy like Eck is beyond the pale.

Avoiding the stuff about the Price, but what I find interesting is how people view Eckersley. I mean I'm out of town so I don't hear his color commentary but from my memory, when Eckersley played, he was considered (and I think he has admitted to this) one of the least-liked players in the game.

Being one of the best at anything in the world takes a lot of talent but also a compulsive hunger or fear of failure or other defining traits, many of which make people unlikable to the rest of the world. That applies to both Eckersley and Price.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

Who cares? But for CHB's belated piece, this would have blown over by now.

This is where I'm at. The incident itself is weeks old and was pretty much forgotten about. Then Shaughnessy unleashes this article and brings it back to the forefront. Not only is local media buzzing about it, but it's starting to get some traction from national folks, if Twitter is to be believed as indicative. Shank's going to get a round of appearances (local and national TV/radio), which really gets at his motivations.

 

[j44thor]

This is where I'm at. The incident itself is weeks old and was pretty much forgotten about. Then Shaughnessy unleashes this article and brings it back to the forefront. Not only is local media buzzing about it, but it's starting to get some traction from national folks, if Twitter is to be believed as indicative. Shank's going to get a round of appearances (local and national TV/radio), which really gets at his motivations.

This is what makes it a hatchet piece esp when you add in the JBJ half-truths.

Shank just craves the attention so badly.

 

[Tartan]

so... the players hate Eck?..so typical of today's generation. They don't know how to handle someone who speaks their mind, and actually tells it like it is. Pampered little snowflakes. This team is becoming very unlikable.

I'm sure they all eat too much avocado toast and have loads of participation trophies too.

Shaughnessy blows shit up like this out of nothing as a matter of course. Price does come off as an immature asshole. Farrell does come off here as a questionable leader. But then, Shaughnessy loves to make his subjects come off as poorly as possible.

Which isn't to say there aren't troubling aspects to it, just that I don't particularly trust Shank to be forthright in his reporting if he finds a juicy controversy that he can sink his teeth into.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

Last thing I have to say about this nonsense:

Until a player on a team openly criticizes another player or manager/coach on the team (e.g. Montero) - everything else is just noise. Who gives a fuck if a player "disrespects" a broadcaster (or a player on another team). Think about that for a second.

 

[E5 Yaz]

Who gives a fuck if a player "disrespects" a broadcaster (or a player on another team). Think about that for a second.

It all comes down to what you expect out of your mercenaries.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

Post last thing:

Let me get this out of the way. When he was giving his Hall of Fame acceptance speech in 1966, many people thought they heard him say “Fuck Egan,” meaning “The Colonel” Dave Egan, a sportswriter for the Boston Record with whom he carried on a blood feud for years. Do you think he really said it?


Yes, I do. And if he didn’t say it, I can guarantee he thought it.

One thing I particularly admire about “The Kid” is that you don’t minimize the distractions that Williams brought to the Red Sox with the constant spats with sportswriters and spitting at fans who booed him – things like that. He did what he did, and you let him take the blame for it. Do you think in some ways he might have hurt his team with this irresponsible behavior?

Yeah, you’ve got to give him the blame for that. I don’t think there’s any way you can make a case that he helped the Red Sox with all the fussing and feuding. But on the other hand, you have to balance that out with the fact that his teammates, most of them, really loved him and believed in him. Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, others loved him. He went out of his way to help young players, especially with hitting. He was really one of the first batting coaches on a big-league team.

 

[cahlton]

Where. Show your work.

Also, for all of the people who are claiming that this isn't a big deal, why has John Henry, chairman Tom Werner, CEO Sam Kennedy, and Dave Dombrowski all apologized to Eckersley? Or are they in on it with Eckersley?

Guys, baseball players do shitty things all the time. It's fine. Some people are jerks or do jerky things. Price hasn't murdered anyone, so no one is saying that you should boo David Price during his next start at Fenway. But to say that there's nothing going on here or that the media is solely to blame is absolutely ridiculous.

Show my work? Seriously? The fact that you ask this question is exactly why the CHB has a job. He has written an entire column about tension between two black players on the current team and a retired white Hall of Famer. Price is loudmouthed, profane, emotionally volatile, "grandstanding" and "thin-skinned" (the last an accusation that makes no sense, given that he's defending a teammate). JBJ is sneaky and two-faced. Neither of them has the proper respect for their white elder Eckersley, despite his HOF career and difficult life experiences and--oh, yeah--his fairly pointed criticism, as a member of the media, of their professional failings.

If Shaughnessy wants to write a story about how players don't like Eck's criticisms, maybe he should try to cast the net a little wider (interview ONE white player, maybe), so people don't see through to his unconscious motives, the way they did back in 2013 when he wrote that David Ortiz might be juicing for no reason other than that he was having an excellent season. Ortiz was, at the time, a known Dominican, and, as every sportswriter of long standing who does his homework knows, pretty much all of those Dominican players do steroids.

Incidentally, I can't imagine Eck is any happier with this piece than Price and JBJ are. It's only going to make his job harder to be a pawn in Shaughnessy's latest racial-strife-on-the-Red-Sox story.

 

[C4CRVT]

Blathering and homework aren't the same thing.

 

[chawson]

Show my work? Seriously? The fact that you ask this question is exactly why the CHB has a job. He has written an entire column about tension between two black players on the current team and a retired white Hall of Famer. Price is loudmouthed, profane, emotionally volatile, "grandstanding" and "thin-skinned" (the last an accusation that makes no sense, given that he's defending a teammate). JBJ is sneaky and two-faced. Neither of them has the proper respect for their white elder Eckersley, despite his HOF career and difficult life experiences and--oh, yeah--his fairly pointed criticism, as a member of the media, of their professional failings.

If Shaughnessy wants to write a story about how players don't like Eck's criticisms, maybe he should try to cast the net a little wider (interview ONE white player, maybe), so people don't see through to his unconscious motives, the way they did back in 2013 when he wrote that David Ortiz might be juicing for no reason other than that he was having an excellent season. Ortiz was, at the time, a known Dominican, and, as every sportswriter of long standing who does his homework knows, pretty much all of those Dominican players do steroids.

Incidentally, I can't imagine Eck is any happier with this piece than Price and JBJ are. It's only going to make his job harder to be a pawn in Shaughnessy's latest racial-strife-on-the-Red-Sox story.

Totally agree with this. Shaughnessy's obviously not going to stoke any overt racial animus (not that his editors would let it fly). He might not even be conscious of it. But the subtext is totally there. All kinds of "know your place" bullshit.

Questions for this board: Why is it so hard to imagine that Eck might be kind of an asshole? And why is it "childish" and not a quality of leadership when Price sticks up for a teammate against someone it seems many in the clubhouse aren't fond of?

 

[BestGameEvah]

Maybe Mr & Mrs Bradley should pay less attention to the Media.
The premeditated attack on Eck shows he couldn't handle the
true reporting about his performance at the time.
One good day does not undo the fact that he was
hitting .121 in 24 games <one old articles states>.
God forbid Eck report that!!

 

[cahlton]

Further to the above, because I just looked up the note I sent to Shaughnessy after the Ortiz article: At the time, Ortiz had had 63 ABs and had a .426 BABIP. This is the kind of foundation Shaughnessy builds his stories on. He's got a script—"Dear reader, minority players aren't really our kind of people"—and he finds a way to write the same story over and over again.

 

[Snodgrass'Muff]

Meh, it's not mind blowing but it's still not a ho hum affair, either. If the CHB's account is accurate, saying "get the F out of here" repeatedly to a guy like Eck is beyond the pale. That Price's teammates cheered that boorish behavior is more than just taking a side. It's participating in Price's silly behavior. And it sucks.

It's blindingly obvious that if Price wanted to address a perceived wrong by Eck, he had at least ten other easy alternatives that did not involve grand standing. He chose something that was designed not to be constructive and only to make him look good in the eyes of juveniles. Said differently, backing up this particular teammate behavior was both noteworthy and douchey.

Separately, the narrative that this is one of those "only in Boston" moments is nonsense. Price's entire body of work -- from the incessant tweets, to the saying he will not speak with the media, to his general surliness about the fans and Boston as a whole, to his playoff failure, to his silliness with Ortiz before he got here -- informs how we view this latest crap. If this was a one off incident, I think it would have gotten less attention. It still would have been covered because it's presumably unique for a star player to so severely isolate and lambaste a former HOF pitcher who is one of the team's color commentators. But the larger picture with Price, especially given how critical Price is to the team's success, is what makes this a story. It would be covered differently in Tampa and KC but it would be a story anywhere.

You're missing my point. This incident is pulling back the curtain a bit.

1) That an alpha personality hundreds of millionaire athlete is disrespecting a retired player who is now a commentator over a perceived slight

and

2) That a bunch of professional athletes are immature enough to applaud the comment from one of the alpha personalities in the room

plus

3) a known hack writer who thrives on riling up fans is making a big deal out of it

should be neither surprising or all that noteworthy. Pro sports are filled with assholes and adults who act like children. They play a game for a living. This "play the game the right way" "Act like you've been there before" dignified facade that gets tossed around the sport is just that, a facade.

We don't get a look at this kind of stuff often, so we are always surprised when something like this surfaces, but I doubt this kind of behavior is all that rare. It makes for a great column, though, because we don't know nearly as much as we think we do.

So Price is a prick, the roster isn't filled with men in their 20's and 30's who are wise beyond their years and CHB is still CHB. I get why its a story, but that doesn't mean I can't think the whole thing is still wildly overblown.

 

[Seven Costanza]

EDIT: eh, this was a crappy way of saying A) Team Eck B) Price is a jerk C) CHB sucks

 

[C4CRVT]

If true, Price's actions are pretty stupid. The first thought I had was that it seemed like fake tough guy bullying to me. "Hold me back" seems right on. If he thinks that approach is leadership, wow is he way off. And if Farrell really hasn't coached him on why it wasn't an appropriate way of handling the situation or given him some insight into how he could have handled it better, that's a failure of leadership too.

And yet this seems like the wiser approach:

I just have a really hard time believing this is the entire story, so I am choosing to reserve judgment. Also, I've learned through the years that Dan Shaughnessy ALWAYS has motive beyond truth. Always. So it's really difficult for me to form an opinion based on his column. It just logically doesn't add up for me.

 

[chawson]

EDIT: eh, this was a crappy way of saying A) Team Eck B) Price is a jerk C) CHB sucks

Eckersley feuded publicly with Tony La Russa when he was on the A's.

Dave Henderson is also quoted as saying: "We all hated Eckersley because he was basically a dick on the mound. I'd faced the guy for 10 years and he was a dick before. The only reason we let him live was because he was on our team."

 

[j44thor]

Maybe Mr & Mrs Bradley should pay less attention to the Media.
The premeditated attack on Eck shows he couldn't handle the
true reporting about his performance at the time.
One good day does not undo the fact that he was
hitting .121 in 24 games <one old articles states>.
God forbid Eck report that!!

Really an attack??? He tweeted a pic thanking him for not believing in him. Essentially the Patriots Mantra for the last 16yrs.
Calling that an attack is so overblown I don't know where to begin.

Eck also kind of sucks at this job, how come no one calls him out on it. His word salad is so tired and he fucks up more than Farrell on a game by game basis.

 

[curly2]

Avoiding the stuff about the Price, but what I find interesting is how people view Eckersley. I mean I'm out of town so I don't hear his color commentary but from my memory, when Eckersley played, he was considered (and I think he has admitted to this) one of the least-liked players in the game.

I don't remember it like this. I know some hitters didn't like how he celebrated strikeouts, but it's similar to how pitchers don't like when hitters pimp a homer.

I think Eck was well-respected. He was always a stand-up guy, never made an alibi and spent 45 minutes talking to every reporter who wanted to talk after he surrendered Kirk Gibson's homer.

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

Show my work? Seriously?

Yes. Seriously. There was zero mention of race in the CHB's piece. None. You said that this was a racial-biased piece. So, yeah, show your work.

The fact that you ask this question is exactly why the CHB has a job.

The hell are you talking about?

He has written an entire column about tension between two black players on the current team and a retired white Hall of Famer. Price is loudmouthed, profane, emotionally volatile, "grandstanding" and "thin-skinned" (the last an accusation that makes no sense, given that he's defending a teammate). JBJ is sneaky and two-faced. Neither of them has the proper respect for their white elder Eckersley, despite his HOF career and difficult life experiences and--oh, yeah--his fairly pointed criticism, as a member of the media, of their professional failings.

You're projecting. Majorly. David Price is thin-skinned and it doesn't matter what color that skin is. He takes every slight as a personal affront to his honor. Which, if that's what he needs to become a good pitcher, that's cool. I'm down with it. But at the same time, Eduardo Rodriguez goes to AAA and puts up some pretty pedestrian numbers (which is being diplomatic) and Eckersley says, "Yuck." You know, that I reread what I wrote, you're right. I mean, this is way worse than Eckersley talking crap about their moms. I mean, can you imagine the anguish and turmoil that Eduardo Rodriguez had to go through that night? Yuck. Now that's a four-letter word that we can all agree, hurts like a fist.

If Shaughnessy wants to write a story about how players don't like Eck's criticisms, maybe he should try to cast the net a little wider (interview ONE white player, maybe), so people don't see through to his unconscious motives, the way they did back in 2013 when he wrote that David Ortiz might be juicing for no reason other than that he was having an excellent season. Ortiz was, at the time, a known Dominican, and, as every sportswriter of long standing who does his homework knows, pretty much all of those Dominican players do steroids.

So is Shaughnessy doing this on purpose (like you said in the first paragraph) or is this an unconscious subtext that he's slinging? Because there is a very, very big difference. And this piece isn't about how players don't like Eck's criticisms, it's about how one player (Price) got into a shouting matching with Eckersley over a very mundane comment.

Let me ask you this question, if Chris Sale got into a fight with Dennis Eckersley, would you be okay with it?

BTW, I think that David Ortiz was always a known Dominican. I remember the early days of his Red Sox tenure when he tried to hide it; but once it became known, all bets were off!

Incidentally, I can't imagine Eck is any happier with this piece than Price and JBJ are. It's only going to make his job harder to be a pawn in Shaughnessy's latest racial-strife-on-the-Red-Sox story.

I think that you're giving Dan Shaughnessy way too much credit here.

Further to the above, because I just looked up the note I sent to Shaughnessy after the Ortiz article: At the time, Ortiz had had 63 ABs and had a .426 BABIP. This is the kind of foundation Shaughnessy builds his stories on. He's got a script—"Dear reader, minority players aren't really our kind of people"—and he finds a way to write the same story over and over again.

Shaughnessy is a lot of things: professional shit-stirrer, seller of stupid books, afro enthusiast; but I don't believe that facts add up to him being a racist. You're the one that's trying to connect the dots.

BTW, you still haven't proven anything other than you read way too deeply into a column of man you claim to hate.

 

[TFisNEXT]

I don't think this is about litigating Eck's past as a player and deciding whether he is/was a dick or not. It's more about the petty immaturity of Price deciding to grandstand and cuss out a color commentator on a team flight over a remark that almost any reasonable person would not consider as over-the-top criticism.

And I agree with those that say we shouldn't be surprised. I guess it's just more disappointing than surprising. Price has a history of acting like a petty a-hole going back to the Ortiz incident in 2013. It's too bad he hasn't really matured since then.

 

[Snodgrass'Muff]

EDIT: eh, this was a crappy way of saying A) Team Eck B) Price is a jerk C) CHB sucks

We don't disagree there. I root for Price, but I don't really like him. Haven't since he was in Tampa. I mean, I think the hate, even back then, was probably over the top, but the guy did more than enough to justify being disliked in Boston and that doesn't just vanish because he signed a massive deal there.

What also doesn't disappear are the things about his personality that inspired fans in Boston to dislike him in the first place, so... color me unsurprised and unconcerned.

 

[soxin6]

I find Eck to be entertaining, but that is likely because I am so sick of color guys kissing every player's ass, no matter how bad they are playing. I can understand the players not liking it, but I don't am reluctant to believe anything that comes from CHB. If Price hadn't just sucked on the mound, this would be a non-story. Because Price just laid an egg, this story has legs. Hopefully, this dies and Price looks better in his next start.

 

[JohntheBaptist]

Yeah I think one of the major blindspots in reaction here might be SoSH's lovefest with Eck. It is fun to listen to a former player that sounds like a later-in-life Jeff Spicoli but the idea that the scope of his rubbing people the wrong way may extend past simple on-air criticism is something to maybe take a longer look at.

I do find it very funny someone like CaptainCoop is all ready to take this story at its word with a big, full gulp though. 25 players 25 Ubers! Fantastic. (except considering this story I think someone maybe doesn't get that phrase)

There is a nominal "who gives a shit" element to these things but you hear this, you hear them maybe knocking around missing Ortiz as a reason for their ineptitude earlier--not a great look.

 

[Bergs]

I am too enveloped by the afterglow of confirmed biases to trust my own reaction to this piece. Price an immature dick? Check! Farrell being an ineffectual leader of men? Check! Unlikable vibe to the 2017 Sox team? Check!

I don't know if I have a point other than in a case like this, where all we have is 3rd hand info being delivered to us through the lens of Shank, we might want to temper our gut reactions a bit.

 

[grimshaw]

If Eck were like Keith Hernandez who is somewhat critical of Mets players but presumably in the clubhouse often because he's more or less the everyday color guy, this thing probably doesn't snowball. I think it's less the actual comments ("Yuck?" Seriously?) and more that he's not there developing relationships with those guys so can say whatever he wants. Remy's criticisms are more muted, but occasionally there, but he has the rapport. I'm sure players still get pissed with him, but don't make a scene over it since there is professional respect.

Price still seems like a dingus - but I doubt the frustration was solely due to the one offhand comment. Eck has been critical (to our delight) as a pre/post game analyst for years, and I'm sure resentment has built more on his body of work and reputation. He was on the road traveling for once, and Price pounced on the opportunity.

Also - why does Farrell need to apologize to Eck?

 

[strek1]

I tend to come down on the side of not liking how these guys expressed their displeasure with Eck. It's one thing to take exception to his remarks and another to avoid just talking to him on the side man to man. I don't see these things taking place if Mr. Ortiz is still the man in that clubhouse. I don't think this incident bodes well for the near future. Time will tell.

 

[rmaher]

First off, as a side note, I don't like Shaughnessy. His inclusion of the JBJ tweet from a few years ago is irrelevant and is an attempt to stir the pot. But I have no reason to doubt his account of the events regarding Price and Eck. It seems like an accurate account, and if it isn't, maybe Price could calmly and professionally set the record straight (doubtful).

But Price comes off as a thin-skinned, spoiled brat. All Eckersley did was say "yuck" about ERod's bad performance. That's pretty freakin tame, by any standards. These guys are getting paid millions of dollars (30 million/year in David's case) to play professional baseball. Part of that job includes being scrutinized by fans and the
media. They should be able to handle someone who's job it is to talk about the Red Sox saying "yuck."

If they're more concerned with Eck's (extremely tame) acknowledgement of a poor performance than they are with their own poor performance, they are avoiding taking personal responsibility for their performance and shifting blame onto a member of the broadcast team. That is significant and it doesn't bode well for having the right kind of attitude and team make up for an October run.

I've been having a hard time rooting for Price, and this doesn't make things any easier. I actually would kind of love if hundreds of Red Sox fans show up to Price's next Fenway start with huge signs that just say "YUCK." They could hold it up in unison every time he gives up a run. Could we please organize this? It might cause him to throw a hissy fit on the mound. I'd watch that. And as an added bonus it might encourage him to opt out next year. He could blame Boston's media and fans for everything and go play somewhere else.

(Also, whoever is trying to accuse CHB of racism is grasping for straws. This is a story about the thickness of a player's skin, not its color)

 

[chawson]

I actually would kind of love if hundreds of Red Sox fans show up to Price's next Fenway start with huge signs that just say "YUCK." They could hold it up in unison every time he gives up a run. Could we please organize this? It might cause him to throw a hissy fit on the mound. I'd watch that. And as an added bonus it might encourage him to opt out next year. He could blame Boston's media and fans for everything and go play somewhere else.

(Also, whoever is trying to accuse CHB of racism is grasping for straws. This is a story about the thickness of a player's skin, not its color)

This is amazing.

 

[geoduck no quahog]

Thread has officially jumped the shark.

And the bear.

 

[chonce1]

I am not a fan of CHB but the paper he writes for is owned by John Henry. If this story was verifiable nonsense it would never have made it to print --- CHB has a sports editor, an editor in chief and some managing editors in between. All of these superiors have the ability to spike a story and they all get paychecks signed by Mr. Henry, owner of the Red Sox. If this column wasn't rock-solid it would not have run, even if CHB is a troll.

Is this a big deal? That is up to interpretation. I think bullying a employee of the team -- who is also a legend and I think very good at his job in part because his candid criticism -- is a big deal to me. I think way less of Price today (and i didn't think much of him anyway). And I am real bothered by JBJ -- staging a disingenuous photo-op with the team publicist and publicly embarrassing him? How about just talking to him?

Again, I don't like CHB but this column is a rare situation when he is doing the job no one else wants to do. This is newsworthy -- Eck, Price and JBJ are public figures. The scenario is newsworthy. It impacts broadcasts. And Price has been such a soft guy his whole time here... i am glad his bullying was exposed. I hope this embarrasses him, the team, Farrell etc...

And anything short of a stern public statement condeming the behavior is chicken-shit by the Sox I know fans hate CHB and love the Sox, but he isn't fabricating a Sox hatchet job and keeping his job, without a correction or retracting when John Henry owns the paper.

 

[Van Everyman]