Sunday, May 15, 2011

Posada wise to apologize for his bad behavior


Jorge Posada is right. Everyone has a bad day once in a while. But his bad day happened in front of the baseball world and Posada wisely apologized for his deplorable behavior.

Posada walked into Joe Girardi’s office to say how sorry he was for pulling himself from such a critical baseball game against the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees designated hitter seems genuinely embarrassed about what he did and was very emotional in talking about how he let down his teammates and his fans.

“It was just one of those days you regret,” he said.

I’ll bet he does. It seems clear now that Posada was completely at fault for instigating the nasty dispute with Brian Cashman and the New York Yankees, especially since he admitted that his supposed stiff back wasn’t paining him enough to keep him out of the lineup. What Posada did is considered unforgiveable by many of his baseball colleagues, but his Yankee teammates will likely rally around him, at least publicly.

The Yankees made a gesture of good will in announcing that they would not discipline Posada for his act of insubordination, even though they had every right to do so. But the Yankees will never forgive and forget and they will find an indirect way to punish Posada. They will no longer be so concerned with his feelings the next time they decide to bench him or put him in the 9th spot in the lineup in a big game. Or maybe they will wait until after he retires and really make him wait before they honor him with a well-deserved spot in Monument Park.

I won’t have such lingering bad feelings against Posada. He’s never been my favorite Yankee because of his volatile temperament, which I feel has gotten the Yankees into unnecessary trouble at times. But I’ve always appreciated his talents on the field and his obvious leadership in the clubhouse. I hate that he let this happen, but can’t say that I’m surprised he did. At least Posada was smart enough to quickly apologize. Now it’s time to move on.

No comments:

Post a Comment