Erik Bedard = worst interview ever?

If Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times, who is also Canadian and speaks French, can't cull anything decent from Bedard, no one will.

 

A lot of times an athlete's idea of being "burned" means, "Pointed out that I had a shitty game when I did."

 

Bingo, we have a winner. The issue isn't whether he talks to the press or says anything interesting. The issue is how he treats people. If you don't want to talk, don't talk. But don't treat reporters, or anyone else for that matter, as if they're somehow inferior to you, like they don't deserve to be treated with basic civility. This doesn't sound like a shy or private guy to me. This sounds like a guy who gets off on being rude to people that he considers to be somehow beneath him.

 

Well, you probably got that right.

Hell, they could chatter away and no one else would understand one fucking word.

 

Many of the quotes are cockneyed, regurgitated cliches that we've all heard a million times anyway. It's the rare athlete that gives media good, juicy quotes.

Though I can remember covering the local Class AA baseball team last year. For some reason, one pitcher would always give me at least one OMG-I've-got-to-use-this quotes after games he started. I don't know if it's anything I do differently from anyone else, but the other guy who covered the team would usually get the standard baseball cliches while I'd get one of those gems.

Hell, I don't mind. I'm using it if it's good.

But back to Bedard, because he may act like a jerk to us doesn't mean he's a jerk away from the diamond. If we see him run over a little old lady because he's late to a side session and he doesn't stop because he doesn't want to miss talking to Rick Peterson or whoever the hell is the Mariners pitching coach these days, THEN he's a jerk.

 

For what it's worth, that reporter wrote about the four questions part but reported nothing about the response.

 

JR, who's The Baby Jesus? Crosby?

 

An athlete boycotting the media means he's boycotting the fans? That might have been the case a couple decades ago, but not anymore. Athletes have so many ways to get their thoughts and opinions out. They dont need us anymore.

But baseball does.

That's my biggest problem with athletes like Bedard. Like it or not, talking with the media, especially after a game, is part of their jobs. The best part is Bedard -- and others like him -- thinks he is sticking it to the media by not being cooperative. He's wrong. He's sticking it to his teammates. Someone needs to explain to him that with him or without him, we still have stories to write. If he doesn't answer questions, we'll just go ask someone else.

One more thing: Pulitzer Wannabe says readers don't care how athletes treat the media. I won't question how he knows what interests every reader in his circulation area ... but if there are 100,000 readers out there, I'm guessing more than half might be interested to know how a star pitcher -- especially one that just arrived -- is in the clubhouse, and that includes his relations with the media. No, that doesn't mean we should write long stories about it. But I think how a person handles all parts of his job says something about that person. In the end, why not just write everything and let the reader decide what he or she cares about?

 

That's not exactly what I said. They just think it's self-interested whining on our part when we bring it up. And they may want to know about it, but in most cases, they'll cheer on the player for "sticking it to the media."

 

i happen to mostly agree with you in the fact that athletes aren't all that insightful. the rest of the sporting fanbois happen to disagree with us.

 

And how do you know that exactly?

Obviously fans would rather have a 20-game winner than someone who is great in the interview room ... but how a player deals with the media IS newsworthy, especially in baseball. Like it or not, had Jim Rice been a little more cordial during his day, he'd probably be in the HOF right now.