AP on Renteria

Read the full article I'm discussing at Netscape Sports

Now this morning's Sunday sports section carried an AP article on the Atlanta Braves' Edgar Renteria that was quite interesting, in that nearly as much of Paul Newberry's time was spent bashing Boston and its fans as praising the resurging Renteria.
Now, I have no problem praising Renteria. I liked the guy last year, and I actually had hoped that Boston would keep him around another year. I think he would have rebounded - but I understand the decision not to. Especially given that with our new infield we have one of the best defensive teams around these days, I could understand Boston shopping Renteria. I wish we'd gotten more for him, but that's a whole other column for another day.
But, it was hardly the fault of the Fenway faithful that he failed, and that's what this AP column implies. The column begins its third paragraph by saying that he had "one mediocre season with the Red Sox." Let's be honest, folks. It was a terrible season. Probably the worst performance I've seen at shortstop in Boston, and we've had a revolving door at that position since Nomar left.
Then, later in that paragraph, the crazy clincher: "And, more important, a chance to fit right in with the laid-back Atlanta Braves." Now, I understand that Boston is an intense baseball atmosphere, but that sentence implies that the team was stressful as well, while the Braves are a bunch of happy-go-lucky good ol' boys. Can any team be more relaxed and laid-back than the Gang of Idiots? Having Manny, J.D., and Millar in the clubhouse doesn't exactly make for an intense, stressful atmosphere. What, pray tell, is Mr. Newberry getting at here?
Well, we come to learn later he really means the city of Atlanta vs. the city of Boston, not the teams themselves. Boston's intense because fans, you know, really care about the team. When you have the second-highest payroll in MLB, expectations are high, as they should be. I can understand why baseball's more laid-back in a city where the team always wins the division title, then almost always loses in the first or second round of the playoffs. What, you mean there's no intensity there? I'm shocked.
Then later on, quotes from Marcus Giles, who of course has never played in Boston and therefore has no idea what he's talking about:
Marcus Giles, the Braves' second baseman, said he can see why Renteria struggled to fit in with the high-profile Red Sox. "Edgar is not big on fame. He doesn't worry about the glory," Giles said. "He just wants to win the ballgame. He's an old school, blue-collar player. He likes to get dirty. He likes to sweat a bit. He likes to bleed a bit. Anything he can do to help his team win."
Of course, in that quote Giles implies that players like that are uncommon in Boston, or tend not to succeed when they do show up. Excuse me? Anybody remember Nomar? He was about as low-key and blue-collar as you get. Bill Mueller? Trot Nixon? Derek Lowe? Jason Varitek? Kevin Youkilis? None of these guys are glory hounds, and they do - and did - succeed in Boston. Sure, we've had our Manny Ramirez, our Johnny Damon, our Pedro Martinez - but they're not the majority by any stretch of the imagination. You want a team where hard-working, low-key players like Renteria are the minority? Head south to the Bronx. No wonder Johnny was so happy to go to New York.
More anti-Boston fluff from Newberry:
His final numbers - .276, 8HR, 70RBI - would be acceptable for most shortstops, but they weren't good enough for the hard-to-please fans of Boston, especially when the Red Sox failed to make it back to the World Series.
First of all, anyone with half a brain knows that his mediocre offense wasn't the reason the Sox were so eager to dump him. We've had players with worse offense we kept and who were fan favorites, lord knows. The problem with Renteria was the league-leading thirty errors. Now, if not wanting your shortstop to make thirty errors means you're a hard-to-please fan, then I guess I'm hard to please. I think if Renteria had done well on defense, with those offensive numbers, he'd still be in Boston. His offense wasn't why he was booed at home.
Second, those numbers might have been acceptable if Renteria were Hanley Ramirez, getting paid $400k a year, just barely up from Portland. But when you're a $10 million a year free agent, eight home runs on the season just doesn't cut it. If I see my team pay a guy $10 mill, I expect a little better than .276, thank you very much.
Then the article goes on to discuss how Renteria liked his teammates, but it was all the attention he didn't like. "If you do good, everybody likes you," he said. "If you do bad, everybody hates you." Renteria wasn't used to getting booed at home. He wasn't prepared to have every at-bat analyzed, every error scrutinized."It's not for me," he conceded.
Well gee, Edgar, you know what, you were a free agent. You could've signed with the Kansas City Royals or the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and been beloved for every RBI. But you wanted the money, you wanted a ring, so you came to Boston. You also came and visited before you signed, as I recall. You knew what the environment was like. It wasn't as though Larry Luchino and Theo Epstein grabbed you off the streets of St. Louis, put a bag over your head, and untied you in Fenway Park. You knew what you were getting into. I don't have a lot of sympathy for whining and moaning about oh, poor me, the intensity, I can't deal with it.
I can understand players not appreciating the intensity in Boston. There have been a variety of players over the years who have had terrible, short stints in Boston after being highly successful elsewhere - José Offerman springs immediately to mind, but there have been others. Yankees fans will recognize this syndrome as well, I'm sure. I have no problem with that, though I tend to think that any really good athlete thrives under pressure.
No, what I have a problem with is when columnists like Newberry try to pin the blame on Boston and its fans, rather than the players. This routinely happens; what makes it more obnoxious in this case is that it's not the player doing it, just a columnist. He devotes a few lines to the real problem Renteria had in Boston - his terrible defense - and spends most of it implying that Boston fans are crazy for caring. This kind of sports columnist is what makes people dislike columnists in general. He's the ambulance-chaser of sports columnists, and he helps everyone forget the good writers.
Indeed, the only part of the column with which I agree is at the end, where he implies the Red Sox were stupid for the deal they made. That's totally on the mark. It was a terrible deal, and they should have held out for more.