Whining Sucks.

"If you go crazy and give contracts to whoever comes along despite not knowing how they're going to do, then you don't give me my due consideration, even though I do my thing every year, (expletive) that. I'm going to be open to anything. My mentality is not going to be, 'I like it here.' It's going to be, 'Bring it to the table, and we'll see what happens"

"It was humiliating. There's no reason a guy like me should go through that. All I was looking for was two years, at the same salary ($12.5 million). They ended up giving me $3 million more than that (actually $2.025 million), and look at my numbers this year. Tell me if they wouldn't have been better off. And yet they don't hesitate to sign other guys. It was embarrassing."--David Ortiz

David Ortiz seems like the type of person who, if he were to find a magic lamp, would demand infinite wishes and then would be put out when the genie told him that that wasn't possible. The kind of guy who is never satisfied with what he's got. Undoubtedly, the drive to never settle is what has gotten him to where he is today. He's worked for almost everything he's ever gotten. (How's that for passive-aggressive?)  

It's not the sentiment that I disagree with. Being the only good player on a team that at its best has been decidedly mediocre is probably very frustrating; being the only good player because the team signed a bunch of crappy free agents to ludicrous contracts and signed stupid extensions for washed up players and, therefore, can't afford the good players is probably very annoying.  And if you've slung the collection of who'sits and hasbeens onto your back and attempted to carry them for half a season, maybe it feels like you're not being paid what you're worth. But David, dearest, that feeling of not being paid what you're worth is universal; nobody who is good at their job is paid what they're worth.

My problem is that it's all just very depressing. When David, franchise icon that he is, pulls a stunt like this it becomes clear that I care more about this team, his team, than he does. This is just a gig to David and not even 'just' a gig but a 'humiliating and embarrassing' gig. He doesn't like it here? Fine. Nobody forced him to stay.

But now is not the time to start (or in David's case) continue whining about his contract or how awful the media is or how horrible a place to play Boston is. Now is not the time to whine about other player's contracts or tear them down for being terrible players. Now, after having their asses handed to them by the Athletics and with the Yankees coming in, is the time they should band together and at least pretend to be a team.

You've got to wonder if anyone thinks that they'll even win one this weekend. Having already given up on this season and leaped into every-man-for-himself thinking about November, David certainly doesn't. I don't really blame him for that; this season does seem to be a lost cause. But David was sore when nobody thought to name him captain after Varitek retired, is it any wonder though when he doesn't seem to have the least bit of interest in putting the team before himself?