The David Price v. the Boston media war rages on. This story simply won’t go away. It is dumb from so many angles. Nevertheless, I jumped into the fray early on with my column at BP Boston. Rather than just rehashing how childish Price’s actions have been (very), or assessing if Price ‘can handle playing in Boston’ (he can), I attempted to understand why he is bothering to fight with the media. It is a fight that rarely goes well for the athlete, so why do it? As I wrote in my article, I suspect that Price sees a team with a David-Ortiz-sized void in leadership in the clubhouse, that is struggling to meet expectations, and are getting nitpicked to death by local media and fans. Note, I am guilty of some of the undesirable nitpickery. But they are still in (or within striking distance of) first-place and that should be recognized. So he decided to take it upon himself to rally the fellas against a common cause (the media coverage of the team) in an effort to spur them on to (even) better play. The idea that a team of professional basebball players need a common enemy in order to play well is silly to me, but here we are. This story has gotten out of control and regardless of how the season unfolds, it will be part of the narrative.
Read my assessment of David Price and his motivations at BP Boston: Deconstructing David Price