MLB, Josh Donaldson, Anderson discussed on Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast

Automatic TRANSCRIPT

Just like just on the face of it, I guess you could debate the degree to which the intent was terrible, but even the most generous reading of it. It's just, it's just not what you want to say. Yeah, and I think that regardless of his intent the impact of those words was very readily apparent to everyone and I think Anderson spoke to that quite eloquently. I mean, if you and here I'm craving a bit from James vegan's piece on this, which we will also link to, it is quite good about how we just don't really need to take Donaldson at his word here, but when Anderson gave those remarks to Stephanie Epstein at Sports Illustrated. He was talking about the alienation he feels from baseball and the distance that he feels and we should remember that that interview was given in the wake of him being suspended for using the N word. Right. And so there is a tremendous amount of context both in the immediate moment of him giving that interview and within his experience of baseball in his life that is being brought to bear here. I just don't ever think it's appropriate for anyone, particularly a white player to try to weaponize Jackie Robinson's name against someone who and I think another thing we will link to here is the segment that Bradford William Davis did on CNN where Anderson is a tremendous ambassador for the game. He honors Jackie Robinson's legacy quite actively both in how he conducts himself on the field and the work that he does in the community in Chicago back home, trying to inspire young black Americans to be invested in baseball and play baseball even though he knows how it feels to be alienated from the sport sometimes quite profoundly. So I just think that given all of that weight that's around this for it to be cast off as some like jab when it's this iconic player who's life and legacy is so meaningful to so many people. It's just wildly inappropriate no matter candidly no matter what the relationship is between the people but particularly when the relationship is one that is at could at best be described as strained, right? And when the person involved has told you in the past, don't do that. At the end of the day, these are people in a common workplace and Tim Anderson is having an incredibly important person's legacies sort of thrown at him as if it's a weapon. Well, he's at work when he said, don't do that. We don't have that kind of relationship. You're not in a position to litigate this concept generally, and you're not in a position to use it as a taunt against me specifically. So I just, I don't know what's in Josh Donaldson's heart. I get why there is an instinct to try to unpack the intent because maybe that alters the potential trajectory for him realizing why this is inappropriate and correcting his behavior later, but ultimately we know what this did to the person involved and Tim Anderson found it to be disrespectful to the point that he was, you know, moved physically around it. So I just, you know, I don't think that this is ever appropriate. And you know, I understand that it's not unusual for players to appeal suspensions, but this might have been one where if Donaldson wanted to demonstrate contrition if that had been sort of top of mind for him, where he would have just taken his suspension and moved, tried to move forward with a different perspective on his past behavior and sort of a different way of comporting himself with other players on the field. So I do find it disappointing that he opted not to do that and is appealing his suspension. He's still on the COVID iel, so like any suspension would come later anyway, because he wouldn't have qualified to serve it then, but it was just very like the whole thing was just really icky and I hope that he will whether it is something as weighty and momentous as this or just like being less of a dick. At work that he will conduct himself differently. I don't want to be insensitive to the sort of tonnage of experiences in his life that have brought him to this point to your point. It sounds like he did not have it easy. But that doesn't give you a license to treat other people badly. We have to overcome that sort of weight and conduct ourselves in a way that is at the very least respectful. So yeah, and I guess the Yankees got what they expected or should have expected with Downton. I remember when they signed him or when they traded for him, Brian cashman said he's definitely got an edge to him, maybe that type of personality is going to be good for us. So the idea was like, you get this feisty Josh Donaldson this red ass, right? And I've seen people make comps to AG Krasinski like he's that kind of player who, if he's on your team, you like him, and if he's on the other team, you hate him, but it seems like it seemed to be true. No, it seems like a lot of people who are on his team don't like him. Particularly care for him. So I don't know whether it crosses the line from a good kind of feistiness that could light a fire under a team or whatever cliche you want to use like play with an edge that can be a good thing in some ways, but it can obviously be a bad thing in this kind of way. Like on the field, I guess they've gotten what they expected out of him. He's hit roughly like Josh Donaldson has for the past few years, so he has kind of delivered on the field, but he's also delivered on the field with this kind of incident. And one question about the suspension. So it was a one day deal. And there was a statement that MLB put out. This is from Michael hill, MLB senior vice president for on field operations. MLB has completed the process of speaking to the individuals involved in this incident, there is no dispute over what was said on the field, although it does seem like there was some dispute about what was said in the past or how it was said at least or how it was received anyway, continuing regardless of mister Donaldson's intent, the comment he directed toward mister Anderson was disrespectful and in poor judgment, particularly when viewed in the context of their prior interactions, in addition, mister Donaldson's remark was a contributing factor in a bench clearing incident between the teams and weren't disciplined..

Coming up next