Re: Mark Berry is on the money!

[bird <birdw@xxxxxxx>]

> From : " Michael A. DiZio" <" mdizio"@rcn.com>
> bird wrote:
> >
> > Again, anyone with a more reasonable opinion on Baker is an
> > "apologist".  Nice.  By the way, what shall "we" prepare ourselves 
> for,
> > exactly?
>
> Baker has been awful and his salary croaks the team. An apologist is
> anyone who denies that reality.
Baker has been bad.  (Well, sometimes he's been decent.  "Decent", I 
say.)  Plus, when you factor in his salary, he's simply not living up 
to expectations, which, like it or not (and I don't happen to), are 
based greatly on salaries.  His salary probably does hamper the team in 
gaining free agents, unless, as Joe suggested, the new owners will 
flirt with more tax by spending the exceptions.  At least from what I 
can see.  Then again, he'll be here for a while, perhaps he'll improve. 
 This seems very unlikely at this point, and then the question always 
will be still, how much can he improve?

One thing I will say is that I should have used "less extreme", 
perhaps, rather than "more reasonable" is characterizing the opinions 
in questions.  But it still seems to me that there's a knee-jerk 
reaction to anyone who dares analyze the Baker situation in anything 
other than "he stinks, the team will always stink with him" terms.  
Plus, everybody wants to kick this guy when he's down.  That's pretty 
mean-spirited.  Many of the things the Baker critics have said are 
true.  Some are not.

And an "apologist" is someone who will apologize for Vin Baker up and 
down, without question.  The word you're looking for is "free-thinker", 
I think.

> > And what, exactly, is the nature of this "distillation"?  What will 
> it
> > do?
>
> The "distillation", is the cogent recitation of the facts of Baker's
> impact here. What it does is show his  feelings about the situation.
> Mark is not visiting that well known river in Egypt.
Wait, oh, right, "Da Nile"!  Hee hee, that's pretty clever, d'you make 
that one up?

I get that people need to vent about Vin Baker.  Your first post had an 
air of impending doom, as if Mark Berry had started a groundswell of 
popular opinion that would ... I dunno, cause something to happen.  I'm 
just trying to figure out what kind of significance that impending uh 
... thing would have.

Or if it's just more bitching and moaning.

> > "As long as _____ is here, this team will not _____."  God, I'm sick 
> of
> > the overuse of this phrase.  Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!
>
> No, "I was like" is a phrase to be sick of. " Abandon all hope, ye who
> enter here" only applies for the next four years til Vin's contract 
> ends
Don't I even get to be sick of what I'd like to be sick of?  I was 
like, "screw you, fella!"  Seriously, if you like the mind-numbingly 
simpleness of such statements, not to mention their frequency, then be 
my guest.  I don't.

> > Oh, and I also think that Paul Gaston should be destroyed.
>
> No difference of opinion here. Gaston approved this disaster to save a
> million bucks before he bailed.
Indeed.  He's a carpetbagger.  I doubt Wallace makes this gamble if he 
can keep Rogers.

Paul Gaston delenda est.

Bird