Originally posted by rsuriyop
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Worst clubhouse chemistry guys
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Originally posted by Ubiquitous View PostI'm not claiming he is a clubhouse cancer. Frankly, I don't think fans have the first clue as to who is or isn't a clubhouse cancer.
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Originally posted by Joltin' Joe View PostCan one player actually have a "cancerous" effect on a baseball team? I can see how one "carcinogen" can be detrimental to a basketball team but in baseball?
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Originally posted by SHOELESSJOE3 View PostI always have a problem with clubhouse cancers. How much could it hurt a team. What effect if any does it carry on to the playing field., It's something that just can't be measured and thats the problem.
Other sports rely more on chemistry since each play involves all the players on the floor/field/ice.
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Originally posted by SHOELESSJOE3 View PostI always have a problem with clubhouse cancers. How much could it hurt a team. What effect if any does it carry on to the playing field., It's something that just can't be measured and thats the problem.
You're right; it absolutely cannot be measured. You also can't measure exactly when it's time to end a job, or a marriage, either, but at some point you decide the negatives outweigh the positives. Same thing with clubhouse cancers. Just because it can't be quantified doesn't mean it isn't something people who run baseball teams don't have to deal with.
For example, last year, the Mariners -- a sabermetric team if ever there was one -- decided to cut Milton Bradley after only 28 games. Granted, he was having a horrible year, and coming off his worst season ever, in which he appeared in just 73 games. But we're talking about a 33-year-old only three years removed from a fantastic 2008 season, and who had been a damn fine ballplayer up to that point.
Yet, because the Mariners couldn't find anyone who wanted this clubhouse cancer in a trade, they decided to eat his $13 million contract and just release him.
From a cold-eyed analystical standpoint, the smart thing to do would have been to either keep letting him play (after all, it was just May when they jettisoned him); or else bench him in hopes that a little time off would help him regain his earlier form. You wouldn't just release a 33-year-old player who had been, up until recently, a really good ballplayer...unless there were other issues that made it not worth having him around.
In the real world, when you're talking about a headcase like Bradley, keeping him on the team was apparently far more trouble than it was worth. So Jack Z, of Moneyball fame, decided to pay Bradley $13 million to leave, and stop poisoning his clubhouse."Hey Mr. McGraw! Can I pitch to-day?"
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Don't know if I missed it but did anyone say Carl Everett? He was a #1 pick by the Yankees and they let him go to the Marlins in the expansion draft. He also played for Boston and the Mets. During his time with the Mets there was a front-page story detailing how his children, when dropped off at the Shea Stadium daycare center for players families, had bruises that suggested they were beaten and/or abused. I'm not sure what Everett's defense was....he may have blamed his wife. But I certainly remember the headlines in the NY Daily News.
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Scott Rolen and Stormin' Gorman Thomas.
I remember reading as a kid in the mid or late 80s that Thomas had ticked off his Brewers teammates time and again by faking injury so he wouldn't have to do his running either in spring training or before games (or both). Rather he would just take it easy on the bench by himself and watch everyone else run. Cancer? I don't know. I just remember that apparently this went over like a fart in church for a few Brewer players.
I love Scotty Rolen and will always remember his production and great glove work for my Birds during the great years in the mid 00s, but he was well known to have blow outs with management in St Louis and also Philly I believe. Again, cancer? Don't know. Just not conducive to a positive clubhouse atmosphere when you got issues like that."It ain't braggin' if you can do it." Dizzy Dean
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According to the recent biography of Roy Campanella after about 1952 Jackie Robinson was a clubhouse cancer in Brooklyn, especially among the black players. According to the author because of this Robinson trades were routinly rumored for the last five years of his career. I've read a lot about Robinson and don't know if I'm ready to believe he was a cancerous element in the Dodgers clubhouse, but I do believe that even in the best circumstances that he would have been a difficult person to get along with.
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Originally posted by EdTarbusz View PostAccording to the recent biography of Roy Campanella after about 1952 Jackie Robinson was a clubhouse cancer in Brooklyn, especially among the black players. According to the author because of this Robinson trades were routinly rumored for the last five years of his career. I've read a lot about Robinson and don't know if I'm ready to believe he was a cancerous element in the Dodgers clubhouse, but I do believe that even in the best circumstances that he would have been a difficult person to get along with."(Shoeless Joe Jackson's fall from grace is one of the real tragedies of baseball. I always thought he was more sinned against than sinning." -- Connie Mack
"I have the ultimate respect for Whitesox fans. They were as miserable as the Cubs and Redsox fans ever were but always had the good decency to keep it to themselves. And when they finally won the World Series, they celebrated without annoying every other fan in the country."--Jim Caple, ESPN (Jan. 12, 2011)
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Originally posted by EdTarbusz View PostI've read a lot about Robinson and don't know if I'm ready to believe he was a cancerous element in the Dodgers clubhouse, but I do believe that even in the best circumstances that he would have been a difficult person to get along with.
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Originally posted by Joltin' Joe View PostIf this is true, it makes it even more remarkable that he kept his promise with Branch Rickey and during the promised duration, kept his cool and didn't talk back, retaliate, or fight back.
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There are many good candidates who have been mentioned on the last several years. A few seem mentally unhinged, but most just seem like lousy people.
I'd like to offer up Jake Powell, who preceded Rocker by three decades. His response to an anti-black tirade he broadcast was to go to saloons in Harlem, identify himself, and buy everyone drinks. Years later he was arrested for passing a bad check and blew his brains out in a police station. Then there is Ben Chapman, a vicious bigot as a player and as a manager.
Let us not forget the famous "Cap" Anson, who re-segregated organized baseball, which action lasted almost 70 years.
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