By now I am sure you have seen the remarks ESPN’s Alex Rodriguez made towards some turmoil in the Chicago Cubs clubhouse. This is where Alex suggested that there are players who are fed up with how Yu Darvish’s rehab is going. Here are the comments from the telecast.
Here’s Alex Rodriguez making shit up about Yu Darvish and the Cubs. pic.twitter.com/3KmUyCc6Nu
— Aldo Soto (@AldoSoto21) July 30, 2018
Now, Aldo Soto (from Sports Mockery) suggests that Alex was making this up. Brett Taylor at Bleacher Nation went into this theory a bit. I’m not going to go into that at all, you can certainly go to Brett’s post as he is diving into it more.
As this story began to heat up, Cubs manager, Joe Maddon, spoke out about how untrue the comments were.
Today, Darvish’s agent, Joe Wolfe, went to Patrick Mooney of The Athletic and ripped holes in Alex’s story (there is typically a paywall on The Athletic, but it is worth every penny). The following is direct from Mooney’s article (which again is here).
“If this story had come from a credible journalist, we might have shown some concern,” said Joel Wolfe, Darvish’s agent and the co-managing executive of the Wasserman agency’s baseball division. “But it came from A-Rod, so we’re paying it little attention.”
“I think it was classless,” Wolfe said, “and bordered on unprofessional to take a little nugget of somewhat exaggerated information from one person that maybe he had history with and turning that into a spokesman for the entire team.
“Joe Maddon cleared that up afterwards. [A-Rod’s] attacking a player who is injured and on the disabled list, which is difficult for any player, especially one who has a big contract and is in his first year [with a new team]. Imagine how difficult it is for Darvish. But then also attacking him for staying with the team?
“During A-Rod’s absurd comments, the video shows that Darvish was right there on the top step in the dugout cheering on his teammates, which is what you want from somebody like that. He wasn’t hiding out in Mesa at the spring-training complex or back home like A-Rod was when he was suspended.”
I do not know if there are any issues within the Cubs clubhouse due to this. I do know that it isn’t a new thing for the Cubs to allow players room to handle things. This seems to be a precedent that they started with Tommy La Stella, allowing him to go home instead of reporting to Triple-A in 2016, allowing him to sort things out for himself. If Darvish is going through anything, outside of his injury, as some have suspected, maybe this is just more of the same from the Cubs organization.
Alex Rodriguez should be ashamed of what he did on that telecast. Clubhouse issues can tear a team apart, and the worst ones are the issues that are created from a non-credible source. If this was made up, do players start looking over their shoulders for who the rat is? Do they no longer trust each other? Sure there are a lot of what if’s, but a team that is very talented but still obviously trying to find its identity, certainly doesn’t need some made up distraction from some on-air personality trying to prove why his unique contract is worthwhile.
This is also a time that Cubs fans should be rallying around Yu and not ripping on him. The Cubs Insider’s Brendan Miller wrote an excellent piece on why the thought that Yu is mentally soft needs to stop – AND IT DOES. Darvish is hurt, and he has made every effort to be around the Cubs, his teammates, the clubhouse, team events, travel, everything. He wants to be there for the team, preferrably on the field. In talking to a source very familiar with Yu, he expected 2018 to be his best season of his career and the Cubs to be getting the best version of Yu. It hasn’t worked since he has been injured, but when he is back we should, as a fanbase, get behind Darvish.
