August 16, 2012

Gonzalez: "The Source Is Inaccurate"

UPDATE: Extensive Larry Lucchino quotes (in comments). He stated Valentine will absolutely not be fired this season. As far as the Red Sox making the playoffs, he wanted to be "realistic" about the next 44 games: "If that happens we'll be talking about a comeback for the ages."

***

WEEI's Rob Bradford talked to Adrian Gonzalez about Jeff Passan's report of the players/ownership meeting on July 26. Gonzalez says the portrayal of him as a vocal ringleader is false.
The source is inaccurate. It says that I was animated and one of the most vocal guys in the meeting, and that's false. ... Absolutely [I was surprised at the report], because, first of all, if somebody is going to try and be an unnamed source they better be right with whatever they say. This is putting our integrity and everything about us out there, and that's just unfair. ... I just know I was one of the least vocal guys there.
Gonzalez mentions a single source; Passan said he had three sources for the story. GM Ben Cherington, who is quoted in the original Yahoo! article, may have been one of them.
Just like every story around here, there are parts that are true, and parts that are false. I think it's wrong for the fans to get half of a story, half of the truth. Our focus has been to just go out and play ball and just worry about baseball. Things like this come up that we have to respond to, but at the end of the day it's about playing ball. ... Ballplayers get frustrated when things aren't 100 percent accurate, because then it's just making people perceive things that aren't true.
John Henry stated that it was he who called the meeting, not a group of players, during the Yankees series.
[N]o one in that meeting at any time took the position that Bobby should be or needed to be replaced. ... Players felt responsible for the record. They weren't blaming injuries or anyone but themselves. At the same time they openly spoke about what could improve in addition to their play.
Bobby Valentine was on The Big Show yesterday and described himself as being "four months into a very trying situation".
[T]here is a lot of emotion flying around here these days. One of the things I was discussing with one of the players was that all of this noise is one of the reasons players don't want to sign here, because they don't have to deal with this in other markets. They don't worry about the drama of the day. They can just go out and play baseball.
The whole "players don't want to play in Boston" is not supported by the facts. John Lackey and Carl Crawford both signed deals as free agents to play in Boston, and Gonzalez agreed to a long-term deal to stay with the Red Sox.

Re the recently-surfaced clip of Jon Lester throwing sunflower seeds in first base coach Alex Ochoa's face during an April game against the White Sox, Ochoa says it was nothing but a joke.

7 comments:

allan said...

Peter Abraham:
"Red Sox team president Larry Lucchino said on WEEI this morning that Bobby Valentine would not be fired this season. He said that was unequivocally the case."

allan said...

Lucchino:
"We’ve been doing these meetings and sessions with our players since 2002. And the practice goes back before that for some of us. So this has been going on here in Boston for 10 and a half years and one thing that’s been consistent is we haven’t talked about the content or the participants. ... John Henry said that the point of these meetings is simply to improve communication and to find out if there are additional things we could do, or should be doing to win. I think people need to know that this is been going on for some time and whatever report came out about it is the first of its kind over 10 1/2 years. More than that the report is exaggerated and inaccurate."

allan said...

Lots more Lucchino quotes here.

Re making the playoffs:

“If that happens we’ll be talking about a comeback for the ages, so let’s be realistic about it. I want to see us play winning, intense, competitive baseball for the rest of this season as well and let the record develop as it does. We need to start fixing what’s wrong with this club and need all the data we’re going to get over the next 44 games.”

9casey said...

Did Adrian Gonzalez really get thrown out of the game last night, because he wasn't ready? and he swung at the pitch...

This cant end soon enough...
Because I still watch , the Red Sox are like Crack for me right now , i know its bad , everyone tells me its bad, I just need more....

Tom DePlonty said...

This cant end soon enough...

And April 2013 can't come fast enough!

With the Passan story and the response to it, I don't know what to believe, and the soap opera the team has become is way past old.

the piper said...

In this case, are we more inclined to believe Passan and his unnamed source or the damage control from the club after the fact? Or does it just not matter at this point?

allan said...

I lean towards Passan.