re juggling dodgers in mssc qh y l p netcom com mss netcom com mark singer writes if this is true note that i don t think it is lasorda should be fired for at least two reasons publicly humiliating his players knuckling under to his players wishes there is a fine line between getting players input and knuckling under to players demands a manager much like a military officer needs to have his her players complete obedience and respect during a game after the game it s no big deal but when there is no time to do more than react players must trust the manager or the team often falls apart see boston red sox ff strawberry s demeanor as represented by the media often sounds like demands i suspect that a comment like i enjoy hitting fourth i m used to it would get pretty brutally misinterpreted by the media if it came from strawberry russ porter quoted strawberry as saying i feel more comfortable hitting cleanup and i think i perform best in that role paraphrased by my memory and bias that seems like a fairly non petulant answer to what was almost certainly a question like how do you feel about being moved to the third spot in the order a more media sensitive player might answer the manager knows what he is doing if he thinks that batting me third will help the team then i am all for it we d ignore that answer as brown stuff so it seems a little bit of an overreaction to brand darryl s response as petulant personally i think his argument is nonsense and that it really doesn t matter much in which order the players in the order are batted except for personal stats if i were darryl i d probably answer that question the number four spot gets a few more rbi opportunities and i get paid for rbis i think it is best for me to bat fourth but i am willing to hit third if tommy thinks it will benefit the team or something like that it would be helpful at salary time my rbis were down because i was hitting third and make him sound like a team player since strawberry will not likely go through arbitration but use the free agent market for his next contract maybe that argument is useless but it would help his image with the media without appearing to be totally content free remember the media is of the belief that one s best rbi man should hit fourth so the argument is sensible regardless of whether or not it is true jeff
