Seattlest Pix 09Nov24
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Thanksgiving Pairing Suggestion: Dessert Isn't Just a Meal
Mayor-To-Be Schedules Town Halls for Input and Companionship
After years of insisting that “good citizens” were the key to winning ballclubs, the Mariners have hired one of baseball’s notorious bad guys, Carl Everett.
The move improves the Mariners offense (whether the degree of improvement is worth Everett’s reported $3.4 million salary is in question). It’s also exposed an ugly vein of local intellectual elitism.
The move was a poorly-kept secret so already the local Internets are buzzing with commentary—and laughter. Because, besides getting in the occasional fight, Carl Everett is not a very learned man.
Several years ago, a Sports Illustrated reporter elicited some very silly comments from Everett, a fervent believer in literal interpretation of the Bible. The most oft-quoted is his dinosaur-denial:
"God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam and Eve," Everett said last Friday, before the Red Sox lost two of three in Atlanta. "The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can't say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Someone actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus rex."What about dinosaur bones?
"Made by man," he says.
What fun to laugh at Carl’s ignorance! Over at Slog, and at U.S.S. Mariner, broadband-access having, magazine-reading, white-collar-job having Seattleites are yukking it up in the comments, at Everett's expense.
It’s shitty. Everett is a major league baseball player with a high school education. He gets paid millions of dollars to hit baseballs, not study the Mesozoic. Ask the average paleontologist about the intricacies of identifying a slider and you’d get just as stupid a response.
Everett grew up in Tampa’s Highland Pines neighborhood, one of the poorest in the nation. In USA Today, Everett’s high school coach, David Pittman, describes it:
"If you could have seen where he came up in that neighborhood, good God," Pittman says. "I used to drive in that area, but not too often at night. If you weren't packing, you'd better buy something when you come out of there."I'll never forget the first night when I dropped [Everett] off. He said, 'Coach, do you know that Boston bar right up the street? Well, if you stop there on a red light, they'll take your car, and I don't know what will happen to you. You wait back, and when that light turns yellow, you take off and get out of here.'”
So maybe he wasn’t spending his childhood assembling wooden dinosaur kits and going to the Burke Museum (like we did), but rather avoiding gunfire and trying to find something to eat.
Does poverty and under-education excuse ignorance? No. And Everett’s checkered past also includes charges of child abuse. But no one is asking Carl Everett to chair the next meeting of the National Academy of the Arts and Sciences—just to hit baseballs. He doesn’t deserve ridicule for his beliefs, however dumb they are. As Everett's Bible says (and we paraphrase): "Judge not, lest ye be judged."
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Agreed. This is a guy who spent all of last season as the DH for the team that won the world series (go sox) and instead of welcoming a proven winner the city only wants to ridicule his science. You want to make fun of someone's beliefs? There are plenty of better targets for that (Discovery Institute).
Furthermore, I'm a white sox fan from chicago and one of my big beefs with the other team in that city used to be that the fans seemd to care more about how rhino's or grace's ass looked in pinstripes or how much sunshine the bleachers were getting than about winning games. They've turned things around and I think they're not realy happy with the "lovable losers" thing anymore, but I bring it up to point out this family friendly thing the mariners have going on and how that is a pretty dangerous road if you want to field a winning team. "family friendly" is an albatross that no team is going to carry into the playoffs.
I tried tracking back this blog entry, but I got an error, so I'll post this manually.
I'm a Rangers fan, and I put this text on my Rangers blog earlier this morning.
I'll take this chance to say that when he was dealt, he had turned around my opinion of him. He still was unsuited to play center field here, as he's not fast enough for that position, but I ended up being in his camp when he left. One thing I still admire him about is his stance on his children. So many actors, sports guys, etc have no problem with divulging every piece of information about their family and kids. Not Carl. He has five children, but in every team he's played for, he gives no information on their names, birthdates, etc. I admire him for trying to keep his personal life personal. I even wrote him a letter about that when he was playing here and told him so.
Good luck Carl, except the 19 times you play us. :)
On the Discovery Institute tip, even that can backfire. Here's a primer on making fun of someone's beliefs and sounding like the jerk you really are, in an interview with Richard Dawkins: http://beliefnet.com/story/178/story_17889.html. Um Richard, not helping the cause, OK?
The Discovery Institute makes itself a legitimate target by attempting to foist its views on others.
Carl Everett isn't trying to do that, in fact, no one would even know his views if that Sports Illustrated reporter (who I suspect was trying to get Everett to say something stupid) hadn't asked him a bunch of questions that have nothing to do with either Sports or Illustration. Do people ask Richard Dawkins what he thinks about hitting and running on a 2-1 count?
Getting tired of cribbing posts from the Slog, yet?
And it sounds like he lived in a neighborhood that had a high carjacking rate. Where you guys got dodging bullets and scrounging for food is yet to be explained.
It would be one thing to hate him because he doesn't believe in dinosaurs. It would be another to hate him because he is vocally homophobic. Lets not forget that he also headbutted an umpire, grabbed his crotch and spit at jamie moyer after hitting a home run, and abused his children enough so that the state of new york took his daughter away. I might even be able to overlook that if he were a good baseball player, but he isn't anymore. He obviously in the decline phase of his career. There is no reason for him to be a mariner.
Pony, oh please. We're a blog, in case you haven't noticed. We're in the business of cribbing posts from every source available. You happened to hit on one of the few posts that actually isn't a crib. It's a reaction to other posts. See the difference?
Andrew, he is kind of a dick and I wasn't happy when he came to the white sox. Wasn't sad to see him go. Wasn't happy to see him come back again. He did contribute, though, and to my knowledge never beat his kids or saint moyer in the dugout during games.
He contributed how? Look at his stats, he was a below average DH. You can pick up someone to give you the same performance for the league minimum who doesn't come with all the baggage.
Why do I get the sinking feeling that the acronym "VORP" is about to appear on Seattlest for the first time?
He's a thug and he hasn't been putting up big DH numbers for the past few years. He brings some aggressiveness to the dugout, though. Mariner management probably recognized that that's something that the mariner clubhouse has been sorely lacking over the past few seasons and thought that he'd help address that. That makes a lot of sense to me. So show me a gamer or otherwise equally aggressive player with his experience for the same money and I'll agree that the mariners don't need him.
An aggregate cribs posts. A blog offers fresh content/synthesis.
And although employing latent classism barely qualifies as "fresh", we'll concede.
At least the Slog commenters take him to task for good reasons. Your knee-jerk "reaction" is short-sighted. Playing dumb-ball has never worked well for the Ms. Smart-and/or-small-ball, on the other hand, has proven itself successful bar the postseason - a time when most diehard Ms fans cannot afford tickets anyway.
Not to say we wouldn't like the Ms play and win in the postseason - it's just that we'd probably do it from home. Especially if they're playing dumb-ball. The Ms should have stuck to playing small-ball and perhaps spent some money to get a player or two with a decent slugging percentage, a good attitude and a head on their shoulders.
He won't even befriend pitchers? Team unity what? What a dumbass. Unity and smart playing made the Ms successful just a few years ago, and signing Everett seems to be a potentially disastrous move in that department.
And mis-guided beliefs are always the best reason to mock someone. Always.
The bullet dodging and food-scrounging shit is still odd. Where did you guys crib that from?
For the record, bullet-dodging and food-scrounging was total speculation (see the qualifier "maybe" in the sentence).
But I think speculating that boys in Highland Pines dodge gunfire is the equivalent of speculating that boys in Sammamish dodge luxury SUVs.
After the last two horrifing seasons, if Carl says that there were no dinosaurs, and can hit .265, belt 20 homers, knock in 85 runs, and give some life to a moribund Mariners team, I'll buy it.
Ed
I agree with Dan. This passive "family friendly" Mariner ballclub needs some serious aggressiveness and competitive fire from a player like Everett.
With Safeco's right field porch, Everett may hit enough home runs from the right side of the plate that will make his acquisition very worth while.
I agree with above posts... Dinosaurs or no dinosaurs, we need more left-handed power. If he can refrain from having his kid whooped on for two years, that'll do it for me.
Do you guys have an rss feed for just your sports section?
Thanks,
Monk
Have to agree with the Slog--your defense of this idiot's beliefs is patronizing, infantilizing and, quite simply, dumb.
i firmly believe that if people hold stupid beliefs, people should point that out.
that said, my objection to the signing of everett is based solely on baseball criteria - he's old, he's slow, and his numbers have declined drastically over the last two years. this is a waste of money.