Idiots Write About Sports

I haven’t had the time or inclination to weigh in on the Randy Johnson-to-the-Yankees trade. (Abridged version: the Yankees make the playoffs with or without Randy Johnson in all likelihood, so really they’re just grabbing him for the playoff starts. And given how much of a crapshoot the playoffs can be, are those six or seven starts really worth stripping any already thin farm system of its few tradeable assets? Is it worth getting rid of a pitcher 13 years younger than Johnson? Does it make a whole lot of sense to hitch your wagon to a guy who’s one knee injury away from the end of his career when your team is already looking old and crotchety? In short — hooray! The Yankees are doing foolish, risky things again!) But it sounds like the pitcher’s first days in New York are not shaping up to be happy ones:

Johnson got a taste Monday of how much attention star ballplayers can attract in New York. Walking along a Manhattan avenue, he put his long right arm up to block a camera from WCBS-TV after he left his Manhattan hotel.

Johnson, who was accompanied by Yankees director of team security Jerry Laveroni, made contact with the camera, station spokeswoman Audrey Pass said.

“Get out of my face, that’s all I ask,” Johnson said, according to a video of what occurred, which was posted on the station’s Web site.

“No cameras,” Laveroni said.

“Don’t get in my face,” Johnson then said. “I don’t care who you are. Don’t get in my face.”

“I’m just taking a picture,” said the cameraman, identified by the station as Vinny Everett.

Responded Johnson: “Don’t get in my face, and don’t talk back to me, all right.”

Well, at least, he’s playing in a city where shy, retiring athletes are usually left to their own devices by a courteous press corps.

Want to see a 6-foot-11 guy bully a cameraman? Baseball Musings links to the video.

Sounds like typical Randy Johnson. This guy doesn't know how good he had it in Phoenix. You'd never know it was the 6th largest city in the nation w/ its self-involved provincial feel. Being a sports star in that city is like being the high school football star in smalltown Texas--you can do no wrong. Johnson's moody self-importance and tendency to ignore his teammates was passed off as merely the quirks of a great pitcher. I say they're the marks of a bad teammate and an egomaniac of unfathomable proportions. His comments to that reporter ("Don't talk back to me!" What the hell?!) simply reinforces that. I wasn't sad to see the right-wing, self-referential Curt Schilling gone, and I'm not terribly sad to see Johnson off my D'back team. Now, they just have to convince Vazquez to pitch out West.

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