Opinion: Attacking Jerry Manuel
Yesterday, before the game, Jerry Manuel was asked if the booing at Shea Stadium can be draining on his team, specifically with regards to Aaron Heilman, to which the manager replied:
“That’s a good question. I don’t know if it drains a team as much as it affects that individual. I think it does have an effect on the individual more so than the team…It’s painful, but it’s also growth.
“I’m going to say this, and I hope you all don’t take it wrong, I know you’re going to run out of here with something crazy on this: It’s very, very fertile ground for growth at Shea Stadium. It’s fertile ground for a team’s growth and development. Sometimes, fertile ground has fertilizer. But, fertilizer is a good thing. It’s a good thing. You get the greatest results, you get the most beautiful plants, when you put it in that type of fertile soil. That’s what we have the opportunity to do. Don’t take that wrong, because I know what you’re going to do with it.”
Sure enough, in the New York Post, beat writer Bart Hubbach pens a report with the headline: “Manuel Likens Angry Mets Fans to Fertilizer, New Manager Puts Foot in Mouth Again.”
In the report, Hubbach leads by writing:
“Angry Mets fans are a big pile of … fertilizer? Manager Jerry Manuel apparently thinks so, at least when it comes to their harsh treatment of reliever Aaron Heilman at Shea Stadium this season.”
…for starters, the first time manuel said, ‘fertilizer,’ he laughed, as did more or less every reporter in the room…
…also, for what it’s worth, hubbach does not write the headline…that’s a different person’s job at the newspaper, i think, so, boo to that person…however, hubbach has to know what manuel was really trying to say, like Adam Rubin seemed to understand in a post to his blog for the Daily News…
…i mean, this quote could just as easily been framed as Mets Fan = Nurturer, i.e., a person who wants the best for his team and so he pushes the players to be the best they can be…instead, the post framed of the quote as something else, leading to emotional, irrational responses like the following:
According to WFAN’s morning host Craig Carton, ‘Mets fans are under attack by Manuel,’ and so Carton is going to boo Manuel tonight at Shea Stadium.
…as much as i enjoy his radio show, carton is a joker at times, so he may have been just trying to incite a riot for ratings…which, if the case, makes him a bit disingenuous, but such is the job of talk radio i guess…if, however, he is serious, it means he is lazy for not researching this better, or it means he is crazy…
…carton also works hard, too hard in fact, to be a populist Mets fan, ‘defending the honor of Mets fans,’ as he likes to say, and in some case i think he is so quick to take up a cause he does not think the sceanrio all the way the through…
…whatever the case, it feels like hubbach and carton should be covering the Presidential Election, instead of sports, if they’re going to comb over statements and twist them in to stories for the sake of having something to react to…
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