Comments on: Why Cole Really Fell Apart

By: Single Baseball Fan

Single Baseball Fan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:45:26 +0000

This fan rates Family, Faith and National Security above sex, sports, and sexy sport cars. We are typically just more passionate about the later group because they are more subjective. We, after all, remain the more argumentative sex.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:30:35 +0000

Single baseball fan, thank you for proving the truth of my first sentence. Or at least most of it.

By: Single Baseball Fan

Single Baseball Fan — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:09:14 +0000

Jennifer! Jennifer! Jennifer! Thanks for your opinion on King Cole Hamels’ tumble in 2009.
Cole’s failure did not start in the 2009 post season but took firm root in the interregnum between the 2008 and 2009 seasons. In the off season Cool Hand Cole’s fitness atrophied, did not add a pitch to his thin two-pitch repertory, frequented sports banquets, and won a multi-year eight figure contract extension.
A MLB player grows up watching and playing the game on the field and is credited with knowing the code of any player playing on a team. Show up on time. work hard to improve, do not bring discredit to your team or yourself, and desire to win as a team player.
As a 25 years old pitcher with a WS MVP trophy in his parlor playing for Philadelphia, a city long pained with losing, and with a player like Chase Utley who stoically plays hard while hurt at an All-Star level, Hamels is held to a different on-field standard than a player of journey man talents like Joe Blanton or Scott Eyre.
Childishly refusing to improve pitch array when his colleague Cliff Lee can throw as many as six different pitches for strikes leaving hitters with a Russian roulette player’s chance of guessing on a pitch. Failing to keep his problematic back strong when he can walk into any gym in the country in any hotel and receive a free high level work out is a neglect of personal responsibility. (Cole’s lazy approach reeks of entitlement.)
And finally speaking to his personal malaise and desire to see the baseball season reach a fast conclusion is as debilitating to a baseball team dependent on his stalwart mound performance as jimmy Carter’s frank admission of feeling malaise in America is to America’s prestige in the 1970s.
The difference between an MVP and a has been in MLB is desire. Cole had none in 2009 pre or post partum. Fantasy managers, baseball card collectors, broadcasters, casual female fans all intuit that if you would rather be any where but at the baseball stadium you have lost the game. Said again: if you do not desire to play and win, then you will lose. You will be a loser.
Until he shows fresh desire, learns more pitches, leans to the model of Chase Utley, and feels the urgency to win 20 games and not settle for 10 wins, Cole will be pilloried. (I would think just as badly of Cole if he was a novelist of inordinate ability who phoned in her-intended- prose for subsequent volumes.)
Baseball analysts like financial analysts will build in lower expectations for Cole. The Phils will have to add a special starter to compensate and win another WS. And Philly fans will keep Cole in their dog house for failing to deliver on what should have been.
Fans saw Brad Lidge have a dismal 2009, but he was accountable for his mound work post game, worked hard to change his results, and never shorted his will to compete. Fans cannot say any of those things about Cole and that’s a problem.
Cole’s problem is not the baby. Cole is a baby.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:10:37 +0000

Hilarious! Love the trifecta line!

By: Tracie in Florida

Tracie in Florida — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:07:37 +0000

Yep . . . and Letterman’s ratings went UP after his moment of honesty. Go figure.

By: Ed

Ed — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 01:32:14 +0000

This whole damn thing started after they didn’t eliminate Jewish holidays after Koufax said no. Explains why the Dodgers (and Koufax) never went anywhere after that.

Of course it’s the baby. (JCR convinced me.)

And it should be.

Leave them alone.

By: The Domestic Goddess

The Domestic Goddess — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:55:15 +0000

Yup. You are correct. Absosmurfly correct. Once the good ones get married and have kids they lose it. It’s the baby.

Well done.

By: jennifer

jennifer — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:27:30 +0000

What, he can’t drive stick? That is not cool.
I remember watching as some team functionary came up to Cole, who was brooding in the dugout, and mutter something. Then Cole hotfooted it out of there, and I wondered why, and finally the announcement was made. We are all micro-analyzing this situation. My hope is that in the off season, Cole will hunker down with a sports psychology guru and emerge cured of his flakiness.

By: MemeGRL

MemeGRL — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:41:30 +0000

AND, you have missed the big substory here: he gave that fancy sportscar that he won for being MVP TO HIS WIFE! Because HE CAN’T DRIVE STICK! Seriously. Google it. There’s a big thing out there about how he had to send back the original one because it wasn’t up to his wife’s specs, and by the time the “right” one got there, she was pregnant and not really in sports-car shape. The boy-sports-blogosphere had a field day with that one too.
But my hope is that when they look back on 2009 they were too ensconced in their new family life to notice the whiney men around them. Welcome Caleb. But, Cole, sweetiehoney, please get your head in the game. Thanks. You have a family to provide for now.
PS–in an ultimate baseball wife act, she texted the execs of the team that she was at the hospital and asked them to please tell Cole “when he was done pitching.” And to their immense credit, they decided that he was “done pitching” right away and sent him off.
Sorry, I know way too much about this situation and it’s driving me crazy too.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:37:56 +0000

Anne, I can totally believe that you were analyzing Cole’s situation – you are completely into the sociology of things. WRH, yes, now that you gave me the idea, I have done so, thanks!