There's no use crying over stilled Melk.

Pretty brutal. Maybe he lied to them too. He certainly left them in the lurch.

Look, baseball salaries are essentially a zero sum game (yes; there are increases in revenues every year, but there is a basic amount that owners and players have to work with). Teams have budgets too. I assume SF does not have unlimited resources and $15 million to nearly- MVP melky is $15 million not going to someone else. If I am a player who plays by the rules and Melky gets his $15 million without the taint of drugs, I am fine with it. If Melky has violated league policy to his betterment that I follow to my disadvantage, why would I feel anything but scorn for him? Was melky endangering his long-term health and cheating, for the benefit of the team? i do not think so. That $15 million must come from somewhere and someone else (baseball isn't the federal government; they can't just print more money).

Where did $15 M come from? He's on a 1/$6 contract.

There are possibly a few things going on here. This is Cabrera's first year with the Giants so the players don't know the "real Melky" yet. That's different from the Braun situation where his teammates (rightly or wrongly) would have better reason to stand behind him.

And standard reporter-ese. It's not clear that any players were directly asked although presumably the ones mentioned were. It sounds like most players simply chose not to make themselves available to the media at all -- a smart move since there's almost nothing you can say that won't be taken wrong by somebody. The reporter chooses to describe Posey as "stern with a splash of anger" when what Posey is quoted as saying is "ulitimately, it was a bad deision and that's all I'm going to say." Basically that's an extended "no comment." ("ultimately" is an interesting word there but will assume there's no hidden meaning.) The reporter tries to bolster his own position by noting this is more Posey's clubhouse than Cabrera's because Posey came through the system, etc. Well, no duh -- it's pretty rare for a (still pretty young) player to come in from the outside and take over a clubhouse in 4 months. Maybe a respected vet coming in could do that but did anybody think this was Cabrera's clubhouse?

I also note that the only Hispanic (to my knowledge) player mentioned is Angel Pagan. I raise that not as "racism" but relating back to my first point -- did the players spoken with interact much with Cabrera? How good is Cabrera's English, how good is Posey's Spanish?

And of course there's the simple possibility that Cabrera is a jerk or arrogant or just unliked for standard, normal reasons.

Finally, what sort of support are they supposed to show? Cabrera didn't take Braun's stance that it was a mistake. Cabrera's on a one-year contract and won't play for the Giants again this season unless they make the 2nd round of the playoffs -- that would be interesting -- so they don't even have to think about whether they would "welcome Melky back with open arms."

How do teammates react when a player gets busted for drunk driving?

It's rumored that Melky is a major #######, which would explain the lack of support.