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Tabloid Projections

By Grant Brisbee

Next on the projection list is Mike Matheny, which just might be the most boring projection of them all. If you liked watching The English Patient with an economist and a bowl of plain tomato soup, you'll love trying to forecast how Mike Matheny will hit this season.

Mike Matheny

AB: 401
HR: 7
AVG: .243
OBP: .289
SLG: .368

Matheny will graciously return the power he found last year to its rightful owner. He's a class act that way.

Now that we have that unpleasantness out of the way, we can concentrate on what little Giants news is out there. The obligatory "Bonds Says or Does Something Stupid to Kick Off the Season" news pieces started showing up yesterday, and have continued through the day. This type of spring reporting is an art form that reached a creative peak in the '80s with Rickey Henderson's annual contract holdout. From about 1984 to 1998, reporters would wait for Rickey to not show for voluntary reporting dates, and then wait for him to not show for mandatory reporting dates. If they saw Rickey's shadow, they would know to expect six extra weeks of talking in the third person. Eventually, he'd show up, give a State of the Rickey address, and complain about his salary. It was a beautiful dance they all did.

Bonds didn't show up for the voluntary date which, to nick a gag from The Onion, warrants a headline of:

BONDS DOESN'T SHOW UP FOR SPRING TRA(cont. on page 3)
If we're lucky, we read the following in the same paper:
Moises Alou and Jose Vizcaino had not reported by Monday afternoon, but both are expected for the first full-squad workout today.
The bigger story is Bonds telling the USA Today he wants to retire after this season. They knew it was the ramblings of a fractured personality in a good deal of physical pain, and that the guy was just blowing off steam. Everyone did. But it's still the talk of the spring, even after Bonds partially recanted the quote. The story has legs because it's a perfect log to throw on the Bonds-hating fire. It's similar to the non-news you'll get with stories like:
PETA DEMANDS CHILDREN BOYCOTT STUFFED ANIMALS

or

FOCUS ON THE FAMILY ASKS DICK BUTKUS TO CHANGE NAME, PROTECT YOUNG FOOTBALL FANS FROM DAMNATION

The news is willingly generated by a bunch of extremist goofballs, and the news is only taken seriously by other extremist goofballs. And when Bonds opens his yapper, the only people who care are the teeming ranks of Bonds-haters. Here's a handy guide for the rest of us:
  1. Bonds doesn't think about what he says before he says it.
  2. Bonds may love his kids, and he isn't some coked-up misfit, but he is almost certainly a big ol' jerk to the rest of the world.
  3. Bonds often says stupid things.
  4. Bonds is not my roommate. So I couldn't care less about what he does or says.
  5. Bonds can hit a baseball.
Every time Bonds says something daffy, I take two seconds to mentally cycle through items one through five. After that, I move on to thinking about baseball, even if there's a risk it will lead to Mike Matheny projections. If Bonds held a press conference to announce his retirement, that would be news. This isn't news. It's the perfect time of the year to concentrate on baseball, not personalities. I'll start taking my own advice tomorrow.

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