Pre-Game Feature Article Feature

If Zito really gave a crap he would hire Rick Peterson as a freelance trainer.

Maybe Zito was slow to make mechanical adjustments because of all that new agey Power of Positive Thinking stuff.

Just a thought.

After Zito signed with San Francisco, he ran into an old teammate who was out of baseball and in Los Angeles, where Zito lives in the off-season. Zito took him to dinner at an expensive restaurant, then to a popular nightclub and then back to his home, where they were joined by a couple of other friends. Zito showed him his BlackBerry, with all his text messages from famous actors, actresses and musicians. "Not to brag," Zito said. "Just to share my blessings with him. I told him, ‘I love ya, man.’ " The former teammate stood up and said, "Dude, I’m outta here," and left. A few days later, a mutual friend told Zito that the teammate said Zito was showing off, "to stuff it down my throat, like, ‘I get it, dude, you’re this big fancy dude.’ "

Zito had been staring down at the table as he told me this. Now he looked up. "But I was the same kid I always was," he said. "My having money now threatened him. It was his perception, not who I was."

His perception was that you’re a douche. Mine kinda is too.

Great story. It’s nice to see a national reporter get beyond the Surfer Dude cliche.

When I was 11 or so, my mom started going to the same church and reading the same books that Zito mentions. So I know what’s it like to try to apply that stuff to your life, your sporting life in particular, at a young age. In the end, that stuff wasn’t really for me, though I suppose some of it’s still bouncing around my head.

"It’s the people around me who’ve changed," he said. "I can count my friends on one hand."

WAAAAAAAH

After Zito signed with San Francisco, he ran into an old teammate who was out of baseball and in Los Angeles, where Zito lives in the off-season. Zito took him to dinner at an expensive restaurant, then to a popular nightclub and then back to his home, where they were joined by a couple of other friends. Zito showed him his BlackBerry, with all his text messages from famous actors, actresses and musicians. "Not to brag," Zito said. "Just to share my blessings with him. I told him, ‘I love ya, man.’ " The former teammate stood up and said, "Dude, I’m outta here," and left. A few days later, a mutual friend told Zito that the teammate said Zito was showing off, "to stuff it down my throat, like, ‘I get it, dude, you’re this big fancy dude.’ "

Zito had been staring down at the table as he told me this. Now he looked up. "But I was the same kid I always was," he said. "My having money now threatened him. It was his perception, not who I was."

Or, you know, this guy was pissed because you were obviously being a jerk. Also, WAAAAAAAAAH.

He told the magazine FHM that when he went out chasing girls he brought along a "wingman," because, he said, "if I’m talking to a 9, but she’s hanging out with a 2," the wingman had to flirt with the 2 no matter "how big or ugly she is."

Wait… this article wants to make you seem like you’re NOT a jerk, right? Right? What the hell? There are five more pages of this?

I didn’t have a girlfriend until I was 21. I was this 5-7 pudgy kid in high school. . . . I wasn’t a popular kid. I was an outcast. The popular kids weren’t accepting of us. We’d go to these parties, and the popular kids were hanging with the pretty girls while we hung in the back and left after 20 minutes. No one wanted us to be there." Zito said the first two girls he ever really dated were soccer players, because he felt that "athletic girls would understand the mind-set of an athlete"

WAAAAAAAAH

He began to incorporate his parents’ New Age theories, this "pretty deep stuff," into the narrative he had been creating about himself: he was not going to be "some stereotypical ballplayer that has no interests, really — no life, no depth, no intelligence." He began to talk to his teammates, the media, fans, everyone, in a kind of New Age psychobabble not often heard in a baseball clubhouse. He said he believed in spiritual rebirth, which was why he wanted to experience "how cool death is." He put a sign on his truck: "Normal People Worry Me."

So what, now you’re not a jocky, chauvanistic jerk, you’re just a weirdo jerk? And a weirdo jerk who looks down on his peers and mocks people who don’t subscribe to your weirdo jerk lifestyle?

I wasn’t a blue-collar Oakland guy anymore.

I was a white-collar guy on a white-collar team in a white-collar city.

Oh, fuck you.

"It’s a struggle for someone who’s super-aware, like me. It would be a blessing to be a typical jock."

So back to insulting your peers?

But at 30, that "free-spirited kid" is gone forever. Zito said: "I can’t trust people anymore."

WAAAAAAAAAH

I went to the players’ clubhouse to wait for Zito. A few younger players were laughing, shouting, playing noisy video games on TV: car chases, shoot’em-ups… Then he glanced toward the players with the loud video games. He frowned and said, "Excuse me." He went over to the TV and lowered the sound without a word. The young players said nothing. Zito came back to his locker. "What was I saying?" he said, then continued.

So you’re a jerk to your teammates, too? If you want a quieter interview, why don’t you GO somewhere quieter???

There’s more.. but… I’ve gone on too long already.

Shit, I don’t really like this guy. Granted, this doesn’t tell me very much about his actual personality, but it doesn’t help. But the pitching is bad, and he seems like a jerk and I’ve never seen anything to make me think he’s not a jerk. The charity work is good, at least. He does do charity work, right?

before I just disliked Zito the pitcher. Now I dislike Zito the person. Yep, I’ll be booing both the bad decision and the human now.

Man, Pat Jordan is so awesome.

It’s an interesting article. It does have a downside, though, as it makes you actually think about Barry Zito’s contract.

Fixed it.

I feel rally bad for the guy, and before you say “WAAAA, HE’S GOT 126 MILLION REASONS NOT TO BE UNHAPPY”, I totally hear what he’s trying to say, that he thought that being a great ballplayer would make him happy -wrong, that people in the “real world” don’t take sports seriously. He thought that signing a contract for a ton of dough would make him happy – wrong, as it happens (and i have seen it first hand), people DO start treating you differently, because they don;t know how to deal with your new found wealth, and ultimately you (the new rich guy) don’t know how to deal with it either. There is no primer for suddenly finding great wealth, other than the bad examples we see of it in the media. And even if you try to be the same dude as you were before, you best friend will be all “that rich asshole”, when nothing has changed but the zeros on your paycheck. I feel bad for the guy in that regard, and I feel bad that he lets this shit effect his head SO DAMN MUCH that he cannot do his job anymore. Oh, irony. I don’t think that there isn’t a Giants fan out there that doesn’t want to see Barry return to his 2002 type form, but (After-School Special Alert) if he doesn’t believe in himself and disregard all of the self-pitying bullshit I read wrapped up in quotes, he never will.

Bla bla bla

A Flakey MLB lefty. Who would have thought it? Right now he is of the unamusing Flaky MLB lefty bred. So what? Nice to see an article that isn’t a straight hit piece about a Giants Vet. . Refreshing after a The Barry Era.

1. I really like Dave Righetti.
2. I get the feeling that Zito thinks he gets booed because people are jealous of his dollars. While that’s certainly true for some people, it’s not true for everyone. Zito claims that he’s the same person as he was, so he should be treated the same by everyone. But that’s not really true from a personal, professional or athletic perspective. THE TRUTH IS THAT MONEY CHANGES WHO YOU ARE AS A PERSON. It changes your relations to organization that gives you the money, it changes the expectations of the fans, who now rightly see you as both a ballplayer and $126 million dollar opportunity cost. The idea that this complete remaking of your relations with you fans and workplace could leave your personality unaltered is completely unreasonable. Yet, I think Barry Zito, for some reason, expected just that.

I can feel sorry for Zito’s inability to comprehend how he was changing his life when he signed that contract, but I can’t help but see that a lot of his hubris went into this fall.

Only 826 games until the end of Zito’s contract.

He’s so quirky!

I see Bags posted which rookies wore what customs.

Can’t picture Pablo in the maid outfit but Vivia Nacho Libre!

He told his son that he was Joshua at the battle of Jericho and had to break down the walls of his mind to overcome obstacles.

I hate to break this to you, Barry Zito’s dad, but Joshua didn’t do shit at Jericho. He walked around the city and yelled a whole bunch and then God made the walls come down.

< / me being pedantic>

another opportunity for people to hate on zito. I don’t see any reason why people should hate this guy or even make him out to be the devil. Dude took as much money as he could get like anybody here would no matter how mighty they may pretend to be. Furthermore, Zito has NEVER made excuses for his performance.
People are willing to pick apart articles criticizing BB yet any article about BZ is taken as written straight from his mouth. Come on.

Someone just stole a HR in the Sox/Jays game!