Phillips and his colleagues are still stinging from the loss of their wallets.

The comment upset Piniella, who later told the Tribune: “I don’t have much respect for Steve Phillips. Let him be around and see what transpires before he makes assumptions. I’ve lost total respect for this guy. If he had something to say, say it to me.”

Setting aside the substance of Phillips' comment, how knee-jerk stupid do you have to be to respond this way? If someone in baseball (player, manager, GM, etc.) criticizes another player/manager/GM/etc. in the press, it's one thing to respond, "If you have something to say, say it directly to me; don't go to the media." But Phillips (sad as it seems) is the media. If he has something to say that's critical of Pinella, he's supposed to say it on television, not to Lou Pinella privately.

Reading between the lines here of what Phillips said, I can completely see why Lou took such umbrage. It's makes Lou sound a bit xenophobic - and considering 2 of his 3 best hitters are Dominican, his best starter is Venezuelan, his best reliever is also Dominican even aside from Fukudome (and his best American player also has a combustible personality) - that's probably something he doesn't appreciate hearing.

What's more, I don't see much evidence that it's true. I doubt Fukudome's slide in the 2nd half last year was caused by Lou, I think it was more a matter of ### not adjusting very well once pitchers figured out he didn't have nearly the bat control or bat speed to employ an Ichiro-esque hack attack.

It's one thing to say manager X made a bad call or decision -- quite another to say manager X can't get along with players who have to 'culturally assimilate'.

But Phillips was not the only ESPN voice critiquing Piniella. The manager was watching “Baseball Tonight” in the clubhouse with several players after Saturday’s game when he heard he was already showing impatience by changing closers one week into the season.

Boo freaking hoo, Baby Lou. The media critiqued you? That's what they do, fer chrissakes.

It's makes Lou sound a bit xenophobic - and considering 2 of his 3 best hitters are Dominican, his best starter is Venezuelan, his best reliever is also Dominican even aside from Fukudome (and his best American player also has a combustible personality) - that's probably something he doesn't appreciate hearing.

Not to mention Lou's grandparents were Spanish immigrants.

Reading between the lines here of what Phillips said, I can completely see why Lou took such umbrage. It's makes Lou sound a bit xenophobic - and considering 2 of his 3 best hitters are Dominican, his best starter is Venezuelan, his best reliever is also Dominican even aside from Fukudome (and his best American player also has a combustible personality) - that's probably something he doesn't appreciate hearing.

What's more, I don't see much evidence that it's true. I doubt Fukudome's slide in the 2nd half last year was caused by Lou, I think it was more a matter of ### not adjusting very well once pitchers figured out he didn't have nearly the bat control or bat speed to employ an Ichiro-esque hack attack.

It's one thing to say manager X made a bad call or decision -- quite another to say manager X can't get along with players who have to 'culturally assimilate'.

The most ridiculous thing about the criticism that Lou doesn't work well with Japanese players (beyond the ridiculousness of the more generic implications that zonk lays out) is that Piniella was Ichiro's manager in 2001 - you know, that season where he first came over from Japan and assimilated into America to the tune of winning the Rookie of the Year and MVP awards (MVP-worthy or not, that was still a hell of a first season by Ichiro).

Phillips told Piniella not to believe what had been written or said, although the tapes suggest otherwise.

I think it's one thing to say you were misquoted as a PR move when trying to evade criticism from the public as a whole. But he went in for a one-on-one apology and rather than apologize, told him that, even though his words are on the record? That is extremely weak if true. I sort of don't even believe it, and think the writer is just assuming this is what people say when they apologize since he's been fed that so many times in his career.

Boo freaking hoo, Baby Lou. The media critiqued you? That's what they do, fer chrissakes.

Did you see Lou's response to that comment? You don't even have to RTFA, it's right there in the lead in.

Setting aside the substance of Phillips' comment, how knee-jerk stupid do you have to be to respond this way? If someone in baseball (player, manager, GM, etc.) criticizes another player/manager/GM/etc. in the press, it's one thing to respond, "If you have something to say, say it directly to me; don't go to the media." But Phillips (sad as it seems) is the media. If he has something to say that's critical of Pinella, he's supposed to say it on television, not to Lou Pinella privately.

I agree to an extent. I think Lou took it as a personal or character criticism as opposed to a baseball criticism. As you can see, he's not complaining about the comments regarding the closer stuff, it's the cultural insensitivity claim that irks him.

If he had something to say, say it to me

Uh, sorry Lou, but he doesn't get paid to say it to you. Phillips is being paid a large amount of money to opine in publice for ESPN. This interview was an extension of that job. Get over it Lou, the man is a tool but he's supposed to be talking about you in public.

EDIT: Wow, Didn't see David's response ... eerily similar. If I have to think like somebody here I'm quite happy for it to be David.

Piniella criticised Fukudome in the press quite frequently last year. This can be proven. What one cannot prove is that ending up in Lou's doghouse has anything to do with cultural insensitivity. There have been a heck of a lot of North Americans who appear to have ended up in it, after all.

(I'm not sure that his criticism of players in the press is actually productive, either, not that one can blame Fukudome's poor performance last year on that.)

(I'm not sure that his criticism of players in the press is actually productive, either, not that one can blame Fukudome's poor performance last year on that.)

ALL-Star Fukodome. It's hard to criticize an all star, after all we know that those guys are picked based purely on their ability and value. (according to all the Cubs fans, and most on here, Fukodome was guaranteed to put up a better year than Schumaker last year)


I agree with Pinellas defensiveness, but as mentioned it is Phillips job to report what he thinks. In this instance it appears though he doesn't really seem to remember Pinellas background (you know his history with Ichiro and Sasaki--bringing in a Japanese player and handing him the closing duties)

(according to all the Cubs fans, and most on here, Fukodome was guaranteed to put up a better year than Schumaker last year)

Right. Let's see some of those posts. Be sure to bring up the posts where you said Skip was going to have a better year than Soriano.

Right. Let's see some of those posts. Be sure to bring up the posts where you said Skip was going to have a better year than Soriano.
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actually I'm pretty sure I never said either, just that he was having a better year up to the all star game (and that if I was betting I would take soriano, had no clue at all about Fukodome over the rest of the year)

Still Fukodome was an all star, there is not much to criticize about the handling of a player who got 590 plate appearances, or had 90 games played out of the first 95. The only real criticism should have been "why play him so much".

Fukudome had a perfectly useful first half (and a perfectly useful amount of people willing to press buttons all day to vote him into the ASG; much like Corey Hart, really.)

Fukudome isn't the first player that Piniella has trashed in the press, either. If you give me enough time, I can find about 3 or 4 years' worth of articles on mlb.com where he ragged on various Devil Rays who sure weren't anything near resembling an All-Star.

(completely fannish WAG, but it seems like he picks out guys with self-esteem issues and just twists the knife in; wasn't this the original consensus about Rich Hill totally losing it?)

(completely fannish WAG, but it seems like he picks out guys with self-esteem issues and just twists the knife in; wasn't this the original consensus about Rich Hill totally losing it?)

No, it wasn't. If it was, it was by people that weren't at all familiar with the team. And I totally disagree with the previous assessment, at least for his time in Chicago.

Lou should just laugh and point at Steve Philips' time in New York and then laugh some more.

1. The Phillips quote probably does sound worse than what Phillips actually meant. It's easy to get your words wrong in a live interview. Re-arrange it as "Lou isn't very patient as a manager and tends to express himself angrily. Fukudome has a lot of non-baseball stuff to deal with (e.g. cultural assimilation) so he was bound to struggle at some point. Lou's angry reaction to that added to Fukudome's problems."

Anyway, that might be the origin of the "misquote" -- i.e. Phillips told Lou "that's not what I meant."

2. That said, the actual quote does imply Piniella's culturally insensitive. And while it is Phillips job to give his opinion that doesn't cover calling someone racist without good evidence. (Yes, legally Phillips is covered.) I don't blame Piniella for being upset.

3. Back to baseball -- last year's bullpen was rather good (Howry notwithstanding) but the Cubs have pretty much completely revamped it. That's odd -- not necessarily a bad idea but odd.