Story about Dunn and his child

[Soxbadger]

Get outta here with that disney made for tv movie bulls***. These are grown men getting paid millions to perform. Adam Dunn did not perform. Not even a little bit. I don't care how hard you try. If you don't get it done (no pun), off with your head. I can see an injury. That's different. But besides that, that comes with the job. If you don't boo players from your team, fine. But don't act like there's something wrong with those that boo when you suck.

 

I never said there is anything wrong with people who do.

 

I said that if you really care about the Sox, you would think about the consequences of your actions before you do them.

 

Its not about Disney movies, I just want to win more than anything, and I will do whatever it takes to increase my teams chances of winning.

 

You dont seem to understand winning. If it was shown that booing improved performance, I would say boo every single player. But it doesnt, it is at best neutral, but likely negative on performance. Therefore why sabotage a player who is trying their hardest?

 

It makes no sense, not if you care about winning.

[caulfield12]

I never said there is anything wrong with people who do.

 

I said that if you really care about the Sox, you would think about the consequences of your actions before you do them.

 

Its not about Disney movies, I just want to win more than anything, and I will do whatever it takes to increase my teams chances of winning.

 

You dont seem to understand winning. If it was shown that booing improved performance, I would say boo every single player. But it doesnt, it is at best neutral, but likely negative on performance. Therefore why sabotage a player who is trying their hardest?

 

It makes no sense, not if you care about winning.

 

 

That's why this argument gets so emotional.

 

There are those who CARE about the Sox who have the notion (mistaken or not) that supporting a sub-par or average team will only encourage more mediocrity (see Wrigley/Cubs). That by making the franchise profitable without holding it accountable for results, it only causes the management to get the mistaken (eventually) notion that this model can continue forever and nobody will say THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!

 

Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle.

 

Usually, I don't boo effort, even if it's futile. See Flowers, Lillibridge, Beckham trying to hit fastballs in 2012.

[thxfrthmmrs]

Anyone seen Breaking Bad? (Great show btw) When Jane Margolis died of OD, her father was devastated, and still went on to his job, got distracted by his thoughts, mis-directed the air traffic, ended up killing everyone on the plane.

 

I feel that Dunn didn't handle this properly. The condition of his son is a sad story and no one deserves the fate. However the correct way to handle the situation was to let the team know about it and take as much time away as possible. He didn't just suck for a period of time, he sucked the entire season. He knows it, the team knows it. He wasn't just not helping the team, he was killing the team with his performance. He wasn't just making himself look bad, he was making his teammates look bad, he's not moving runners along, not driving them in, not giving his teammates good pitches to hit because he was historically bad. There comes a certain amount of responsibility when you are being paid $15 million for the year. I don't know how much his son's situation affected him last year, but if he felt that it was distracting him, and he was flat out killing the team, the correct way to handle it is to be upfront and take time off.

[Quin]

Anyone seen Breaking Bad? (Great show btw) When Jane Margolis died of OD, her father was devastated, and still went on to his job, got distracted by his thoughts, mis-directed the air traffic, ended up killing everyone on the plane.

 

I feel that Dunn didn't handle this properly. The condition of his son is a sad story and no one deserves the fate. However the correct way to handle the situation was to let the team know about it and take as much time away as possible. He didn't just suck for a period of time, he sucked the entire season. He knows it, the team knows it. He wasn't just not helping the team, he was killing the team with his performance. He wasn't just making himself look bad, he was making his teammates look bad, he's not moving runners along, not driving them in, not giving his teammates good pitches to hit because he was historically bad. There comes a certain amount of responsibility when you are being paid $15 million for the year. I don't know how much his son's situation affected him last year, but if he felt that it was distracting him, and he was flat out killing the team, the correct way to handle it is to be upfront and take time off.

 

I don't think anyone is comprehending that this isn't a two bereavement list trip. This could theoretically be his entire contract before his son even gets mildly better.

[Soxbadger]

Isnt the more appropriate context, if her father would have performed better or worse if he was being booed?

 

Isnt the point of booing to show displeasure and get a different result?

[thxfrthmmrs]

Dude, stop beating a dead horse. Your arguments hold no value nor influence when you persistently try to get other fans to feel the same way you do yet you are clearly ignoring how the fans, people who pay the players and made this game possible, feels at a game. Your ideas are extremely conditioned in that you believe that everyone should behave and feel a certain way at a game, and that every player reacts a certain way to certain events. Some times, it helps a lot to take a step back and understand how other people feels. If you feel that you don't want to boo the players, that fine's, I am not asking you to change your stance.

[Soxbadger]

You can do what you want, no one is stopping you.

 

I understand why people boo, its a pretty instinctual reaction, its easy. I was just asking people to think about what message they are sending when they boo, if they still want to do it, that is their choice.

[Kyyle23]

So if supporting their fans is so important to the White Sox, why don't they low their ticket prices or parking fees?

 

It's a business.

 

The White Sox are worth roughly $1.2-1.5 BILLION dollars.

 

If they start giving away tickets for free or operating as a 501c3 nonprofit/charity, then booing becomes more questionable.

 

That said, it's ridiculous to make so many excuses for players. That's the culture we live in today, where nobody is held accountable for their actions...it's scaring me, but maybe my dad was right and you do lose your "liberalism" as you grown older and understand the ways of the world. Comparing China to the US, having lived there for two years, you see the huge differences. If a student is fat or overweight, they're teased (pretty unmercifully) about it. Being overweight is not seen as a disability or something to be embraced or used as an excuse. And yet you see very very few obese people in Asia, except for the children of the very rich who are spoiled and spend all their time playing computer games and discovering all the latest apps on their cell phones.

 

Menendez Brothers killed their parents....they were abused, so even though they planned to murder their parents with malice and forethought, excusable.

 

In the end, every evil action in history can probably be excused. Numerous books have been written about Hitler's youth and childhood, looking for clues or reasons to explain the "pure evil" he later embodied.

 

To go along with J4L's exaggerated point about Jaime Navarro, where does it end? Albert Belle had a tough childhood and was victimized by racism, so we should excuse his behavior towards fans?

 

In the end, Adam Dunn would probably tell you himself that he let the pressure of the contract get to him, he came into the season unprepared physically, he came back too early from the appendectomy...he's not going to use his kid as an excuse for performance. Perhaps the boos that Rios and Dunn absorbed are what pushed them to be better players, in the end.

 

Or can we still keep blaming Ozzie and the fans for the performances (or non-performances) of Joe Borchard, Josh Fields and Brian Anderson, for example?

 

Brian Anderson was rushed to the majors, he was never allowed to experience failure, he was gifted enough to succeed without working hard until he got to the big leagues and then he was overwhelmed, Walker screwed him, Guillen hated him, he was too attractive to the ladies so he couldn't help but get sucked up into the Chicago nightlife scene, he wasn't properly instructed from a fundamentals standpoint by our minor league staff, blah blah blah.

 

Can't we also excuse Ozzie for 90% of his Ozzieness because of growing up dirt poor in Venezuela? Is it really his fault where he came from? How can we hold him accountable, when he basically dropped out of school in his middle school years? We expect him to be like LaRussa, Scioscia, Maddon....who came from upper middle class backgrounds and has access to computers and great instructors growing up?

 

 

The menendez brothers? Evil actions in history??? Hitler??? Followed by Brian Anderson????

 

WTF

[hogan873]

Some of the responses in this thread are terrible. I'm not arguing that it's bad to boo the team or an individual player. Every fan has that right, especially when a team or player is sucking. And yes, Adam Dunn had a terrible year. The article didn't say that his son's condition was the cause of his bad year but maybe just a part of it. And I'm sure that he felt just as bad, if not worse, about his performance as we the fans did. He never came out last year and said that he was having trouble at home and that was a contributing factor. He handled it with class.

 

As far as the comments about not caring about Adam Dunn's personal life or saying he needs to get over it and hit the damn baseball, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Yes, Adam Dunn plays a game as his occupation, but it's still a job. He, along with another VERY SMALL percentage of the population play baseball for money. Professional baseball players have to work their asses off to even have a chance to make it to the MLB. In over 125 years of professional baseball, there have been only 20,000 players. That should give you an idea of how difficult it is. Any of us who have suffered some sort of tragedy at home or have a family member (especially a child) that is ill can say that if affects your work life. And if you don't have children, then I'm not sure you have any idea what it might be like for Dunn.

 

Again, I'm not saying Dunn (and much of the 2011 team) didn't deserve to be booed, but to say it doesn't matter what's going on in his personal life is wrong. Stuff like that (a sick child) does affect a person's work life. Adam Dunn's work life is playing baseball. Dealing with the thought of having a child at home with epilepsy and not being able to do anything about it probably didn't help him play better. Add to that starting over in a new city, in a new position, and having an early season medical emergency and it's easy to see why Dunn had such a bad year.

 

Boo all you want, but don't say it doesn't matter what happens in a professional ball player's personal life.

[Melissa1334]

Boo all you want, but don't say it doesn't matter what happens in a professional ball player's personal life.

heres another story that i remember

[Quin]

The menendez brothers? Evil actions in history??? Hitler??? Followed by Brian Anderson????

 

WTF

 

It's caulfield. Expect this.

[Kyyle23]

It's caulfield. Expect this.

 

that was a bizarre tangent even for him.

[LittleHurt05]

Adam Dunn was paid $12 million last year to put up one of the worst performances EVER. People searched the annals of MLB and were hard pressed to find anyone who performed worse. $12 million is more than double or triple what the average fan makes in their entire lives. And these same fans were forced to pay the 5th highest ticket price in baseball to watch him perform that badly. I feel bad for him & his family and hope everything works out, but to say fans should now be ashamed of booing him is ridiculous. The comparison to everyday jobs doesn't work because if you worked that horribly in a normal job, your ass would be in the unemployment line by mid-May. (unless you work for the government)

 

 

And a side note from this story, dogs are so awesome.

[Quin]

And a side note from this story, dogs are so awesome.

 

I really hope seizure dogs can be trained. My brother wants me to take his rescued pug (he just wants his one that he loves, his wife rescued the second one to find her a home). So that way, I can just take a dog I know and love to be trained.

 

If not, the running price for a seizure dog is a couple thousand.

[hogan873]

I really hope seizure dogs can be trained. My brother wants me to take his rescued pug (he just wants his one that he loves, his wife rescued the second one to find her a home). So that way, I can just take a dog I know and love to be trained.

 

If not, the running price for a seizure dog is a couple thousand.

I don't know about training pugs as assistant dogs, but I remember seeing a girl in Bass Pro Shops that had a pug as an assist dog. Apparently it was working well for her.

 

On a side note, pugs are great dogs. Very loyal and friendly.

[Quin]

I don't know about training pugs as assistant dogs, but I remember seeing a girl in Bass Pro Shops that had a pug as an assist dog. Apparently it was working well for her.

 

On a side note, pugs are great dogs. Very loyal and friendly.

 

Pugs have two character traits: Eternally hungry and they bring joy to people.

[caulfield12]

The menendez brothers? Evil actions in history??? Hitler??? Followed by Brian Anderson????

 

WTF

 

 

There is an excuse for everyone now in America.

 

It's not the solution to blame external causes.

 

For example, Jake Peavy in 2011 didn't say he sucked because he was still coming back from his surgery. He might have mentioned it a few times, but his barometer was always his performance level back in 2006-07-08, even if he had diminished velocity, he still held himself accountable for getting similar results.

 

So my question then is, what can we appropriately blame someone for?

 

 

Another example, even though a lot of my "B" class students are super rich, spoiled and lazy, their parents or school administrators won't take any responsibility when their IELTS scores are low. They'll blame the teachers for not motivating them, not pushing them hard enough, etc.

 

Maybe it's human nature. The GM blames the manager, the manager blames the players (or his coaches), it's a vicious cycle.

 

Same thing happens in schools. High school teachers always ask how the hell did middle school teachers ever pass the students on when they were so improperly prepared. Middle school teachers ask what the heck was going on in that elementary school? Elementary or K teachers blame the parents when the students have only mastered 2000-4000 vocabulary words by age 5 when many of the suburban kids are at the 20,000 mark.

 

 

 

It's like saying I'm going to blame Greg if the White Sox lose 2/3 to the Royals or get swept...because his bad "aura" or energy or "qi" will rub off on the Sox players from the stands, as he is projecting them to fail, so they will feel Greg's negative vibes from the OF bleachers and self-implode.

 

 

[southsider2k5]

um, what? Let's assume you're telling the truth (you're not). What does this have to do with booing Adam Dunn last year? He had one of the worst season's EVER. This is not hyperbole. If your personal issue was that bad last year? Take a break. Take a leave. Whatever. It sure didn't keep you from signing the contract. So I don't want to hear it. I'm glad Adam has bounced back. But I'm not apologizing or ashamed of a damn thing that happened last year.

 

 

Your exact words were "Get over it". From a guy who throws a fit when someone takes him to task over silly statements in the NBA, or any other, thread. funny how that works.

[southsider2k5]

Its not just Adam Dunn. Theres plenty of legit reasons to boo someone or something at a sporting event. Thats the only voice the fans have, cheer and boo.

 

Dont give me this write a letter crap or say nothing because the player obviously knows they were bad. You dont have to boo, no one is saying that.

 

But this thread is specifically about Adam Dunn. And he got booed, a lot. So why boo Adam Dunn?

[southsider2k5]

After this post, I am never posting another thing again except for to follow you around and quote and boo every post you make from now on.. I want to see if the quality of your posts go down because im not supporting you.

 

If I can follow you around and say much you suck after every post, while making incredibly personal insults. Deal?

[southsider2k5]

It's a shame the search function doesn't work. I'd love to go back to 2004/2005 when Wood and Prior's arms wouldn't cooperate. Nobody here showed any mercy whatsoever. Adam Dunn signed a huge contract. He then subsequently forget how to hit a baseball. You get booed when that happens.

 

BIG difference between the other team and your own team.

[southsider2k5]

And I'm arguing that this is something the Dunn's have dealt with before last year. But because he was god-awful, now it's coming to our attention.

 

You don't just "deal with" having a sick infant. I can't begin to say how ignorant that is of reality.

[southsider2k5]

Well, I guess I better stop booing Carlos Boozer for being defensively inept. I'm sure if I cheer real, real hard, he'll morph into 2004 Ben Wallace.

 

Thankfully you are around to let him now that he sucks on defense. I'm pretty sure he never realized it before you let him now.

[southsider2k5]

Get outta here with that disney made for tv movie bulls***. These are grown men getting paid millions to perform. Adam Dunn did not perform. Not even a little bit. I don't care how hard you try. If you don't get it done (no pun), off with your head. I can see an injury. That's different. But besides that, that comes with the job. If you don't boo players from your team, fine. But don't act like there's something wrong with those that boo when you suck.

 

This is the real world. A sick baby is way worse than a pulled hamstring.

[southsider2k5]

The menendez brothers? Evil actions in history??? Hitler??? Followed by Brian Anderson????

 

WTF

 

And the circle is complete.