On Tuesday, Steve Ewen of the Vancouver Province wrote about Gregg Zaun, who is out west this week where he’ll be the headline guest at a fundraiser for UBC baseball, and noted that the catcher-turned-broadcaster had brought his very own news angle with him: the ongoing beef between him and Marcus Stroman. Or, more accurately, Stroman’s delightful willingness to publicly drag Zaun on Twitter in response to his often over-the-top on-air criticisms.

I’ve followed this saga fairly closely, writing about it when Stroman and J.P. Arencibia had a Twitter back-and-forth roasting Zaun, and when Zaun wagged his finger about there being “a certain way to behave on a Major League Baseball field,” but had yet to really see Zaun defend himself. Until yesterday. Here’s what he told Ewen:

The players today are so thin skinned. They’re used to mommy and daddy telling them how pretty they are. I have no problem giving them a dose of reality. And I never criticize the man. It’s my job to analyze the performance. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad. Apparently some of these guys have forgotten that it’s a game of failure, that the best hitters are only successful three of every 10 times. What am I supposed to do? Spin it positive all the time? The guys who play the game the right way never have to worry about me. Contrary to some people’s beliefs, I will never forget how hard it is to play the game. I wasn’t a great player. I was an average player at best. But it’s not hard to try to do the right things. It’s never hard to hustle. If people do these type of things, they’ll never have a problem with me.

Perhaps this is what Zaun really believes about the stuff he says, but I found it impossible not to notice how little it jibes with some of the things he’s said — including the “certain way to behave” quote that Ewen included a portion of in his piece. Just to refresh your memory, here that quote in full:

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There’s no reason for it, it’s an unsportsmanlike way to behave. You just dominated somebody. Just high five your teammates and go back in the clubhouse and celebrate. I don’t understand why the jumping around, the flashy, the showboating, the rubbing it in people’s face. Whether you’re talking to them or not, the fact that you’re looking at them and screaming and hollering, it just — it ruins a perfectly good day. For people like me, it just ruins a perfectly good day. I just don’t get it. You can be pleased with yourself, you can be excited, but there’s a certain way to behave on a Major League Baseball field, and there’s ways not to do it. And, you know what? Eventually it’s going to come around. And unfortunately there’s no reason to draw a bigger target on your back, when you’re a Major League Baseball player. When you’re good, people want to beat you — they already want to beat you enough. Why make it worse? Why draw more attention to yourself based on something that you have control over that has nothing to do with your performance on the field. I just don’t understand it. Maybe it’s this new generation, everybody’s got to have that ‘dig me’ moment.

Does this sound like it’s about hustle???

On Twitter, I juxtaposed Zaun’s “I never criticize the man. It’s my job to analyze the performance” statement with this quote. Marcus noticed.

Never criticized? Comical. All this man has done is criticize me negatively from the second I arrived in 2014. I'll speak on it soon! #facts — Marcus Stroman (@MStrooo6) October 25, 2017

Now, I’ve seen a few people responding to this by saying that the expectation shouldn’t be that the home team broadcasters are total homers, and I agree with that, but that’s clearly not what this is about. I mean, what could anyone have possibly criticized Stroman for, performance-wise, this season?

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Yesterday I also saw this:

Zaun’s opinions on this issue are on one end of the spectrum and Stroman carries himself at the opposite end. So the clash makes sense.

I know there are a lot of fans who would see that statement and nod, but the thing I’d ask them is, what spectrum? The spectrum defined by Zaun and his “old school” ilk? Because that’s kinda the whole problem right there: why does Gregg “Fun Police” Zaun, or those who think (and almost always look) like him get to define what’s right and what’s wrong here? And why does this stuff inevitably end up coming off like a way for old dudes to keep others in their place? To me, it’s about power and ego, not about “disrespect” or some such nonsense. To me, you’re only disrespected by someone else’s celebration as much as you let yourself feel disrespected. Like, why does Vlad Guerrero Jr. still have a face after doing a little dance when he hit a triple a couple weeks ago? Presumably because nobody there made the wet-diapered decision to interpret his exuberance for disrespect in order to justify throwing a ball in his eye. Because that would be stupid! Yet here that kind of shit happens all the time, and we talk about it like that’s just the way it is and should always be. And, again, that’s the problem with this, not Marcus Stroman thumping his chest, José Bautista flipping his bat, or Jason Grilli (who oddly features quite rarely in these discussions *COUGH*) pumping his fist after a big out, but the people desperate to draw lines to justify their own shitty impulses or beliefs when they choose to interpret someone as having crossed them.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that scoffing at instances of people claiming disrespect is something that applies to all scenarios in everyday life, and I’m not asking for the game to devolve into non-stop taunting and trash talk. But when someone is pleased with himself and having fun? On a baseball field? Get over it. Get over the fact that they might have the audacity to not take kindly to your criticism of it. And, more importantly, maybe quit trotting out this bullshit just to drag somebody down in the first place — or continuing to allow it to go to air.

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If Zaun wants to abide his own words about criticizing the performance and not the man, that’s completely fair and completely reasonable. But doing precisely the opposite and then calling players thin skinned and saying “they’re used to mommy and daddy telling them how pretty they are” when they don’t take kindly to his play-the-right-way “advice”? Is that what passes for a defence of these well-defined and supposedly noble values of sportsmanship and respect of his — or for edgy and entertaining baseball straight-talk? Cool story, bro.

That all said, I’ll admit that there’s a part of me that wishes Marcus wouldn’t engage in the Twitter stuff on this the way he has sometimes, too. But I can’t blame him for being upset, nor do I think we’re better off not talking about it. So I guess we’ll see where this goes. Doesn’t seem like it’s quite over yet, does it?





