I’ve heard enough BS come out of the Royals front office that involves these terms that when I hear these terms I immediatly think: “they’re terrible and we’re trying to dress thing up so you’ll spend your money on tickets this summer”.

I’ve never liked Gibson, I’ve always considered him a bit of a weasel for some reason, and the more I learn about him, the less I like him.

Grit’s fine and dandy but so too is intelligence. And thinking that one person has the corner on ‘grit’ is about as dumb as dumb can be.

Oh, I’m sorry. I thought we were talking about something good, and not the roster for the D’Backs.

I’m sure that there are some owners who would welcome a smart, principled baseball executive who left his job over a conflict with another team’s owner. But I suspect that many of them believe, as Kendrick does, that employees should do as they’re told (In Arizona, the last two owners have fit that profile to some extent). To them, a GM who doesn’t do as he’s told is not a good GM. That said, I would not be surprised if Towers leaves when his contract is done.

On the other hand, I don’t think he was that fond of Upton himself. He just saw enough value in Upton to hold out until he got a decent (not great…just decent) deal. For that, I’m kinda grateful (although the Bauer for Gregorious deal still worries me).

But now that I know a little more about Kirk Gibson, that idea has been corroded and has lost its lustre, at least as far as he is concerned. His way of playing the game has been legitimized, no doubt partly as a result of the great credit he gets for that hit, and now all I can see is the insidious ideology that underpins his feelings about the game. It’s just wrong now.

I suppose that baseball needs to be a complicated pursuit; or to be more specific it needs to be understood in complex ways. It’s a national myth, after all. Like with the HoF, whose irresponsible stewardship of the game’s legacy is a blot on its own soul, not the game’s, people like Gibson who insist that baseball is not complex, but merely the pursuit of perfect mimicry – in this case, of some paragon of “grit” – should be left behind by the fans. The game belongs to them as much as it does to the players and managers, and the corporation known as MLB. It’s always been a popular sport whose true history is in the minds and memories of those who watched it and who took from it what they needed. What’s true about baseball, as James would say, is what we say about it. Thus, for a collectivist game with popular appeal, it actually lives only in the passing of stories between parents and children, boyfriends and girlfriends, one generation to another.

Which is also why I say, screw Kirk Gibson. He doesn’t tell me shit about baseball.

Would hate to peep through a glory hole.

Yes, I have spent my last two weeks watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

No grit required.

I’m not sure why everyone thinks the Padres were going to draft Verlander, I guess since he went second overall.

As anyone who knows how to use BRef can verify, Upton’s first six years in MLB are better than Gibson’s first six, with a third more games played than Gibson. He’s a better player with more work in as a pro ball player & less injury history than the guy who’s citing his lack of “grit”.

As far as I can tell, Gibson and his team owner’s line of reasoning is that “grit” = “injured all the time”.

I’m starting to think that Towers needs to work for someone else, because these guys are in the process of ruining the team he built.