Toeing the Rubber

If Youk is cranky, it's not at me (or you)! (Photo by Kelly O'Connor and used with permission)

Last week I was asked to appear on BBA Baseball Talk with David Mitchell where we mostly talked about Kevin Youkilis and the chances of his getting traded this season.

I stood firmly in the “I really don’t see it happening” camp and that’s where I still am. But that doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention to the talk.  Yesterday, Danny Knobler of CBS Sports tweeted:

Red Sox are telling teams they definitely intend to trade Youkilis.

Without anything to back it up but:

Eventually, the Red Sox need to trade Youkilis. And Red Sox officials have told officials of other teams that’s exactly what they intend to do.

I won’t even pretend to know what the Red Sox will or won’t do with Youkilis. I’ll just say that as a fan, unless they’re getting some Cy Young calibre pitcher for him, I believe this team is better with Youkilis on it than they are without him.

But I’m not here to debate whether the Red Sox will trade Youkilis or send Will Middlebrooks back to Pawtucket. I’m here to alert folks who might otherwise have missed it given all the hubbub with no-hitters and Celtics playoff games abounding to some quotes from the Red Sox first/third baseman that Ian Brown at MLB.com got yesterday regarding the trade rumors.  I’m reposting because I think they speak wonderfully to how much Kevin Youkilis has changed (dare I say ‘matured’?) since he’s been with the team (emphasis below is mine).

“You can’t worry about it. A lot of people hate and said some things around here. What are you going to do? People have been hating here for a long time. And it’s not fans. It’s other people that hate all the time. What are you going to do? One day you’re great, the next day they want to rip on you. Bottom line is, there’s a lot of things that people say and do. The great thing is there’s great fans and a lot of people that appreciate me. Some people just say things here and there that you don’t agree with or you don’t like. The great thing is you can go out and play the game and you don’t have to listen to anything. That’s the whole thing. I appreciate the fans in Boston and what they’ve done for me. I’ve never been mad at them.”

Other quotes you’ll read when you visit Ian Browne’s article speak to his knowing he can’t worry about trade rumors because it’s part of the deal. He seems to be acting very level-headed about the entire thing but my favorite part is how he made a point, more than once, to say that he has no beef with the fans.  It’s as if he made a preemptive strike against the media because he knew if he said anything at all that sounded negative or complaining that it would be twisted around to relay that Youk was mad at the fans.  He beat them at their own game by bringing the fans up more than once and, really, I just got the biggest kick out of reading it that I had to share.