Scott Miller - CBSSports.com Tulowitzki, CarGo rip ex-teammate Jimenez
Scott Miller with CBS Sports, while posting a bit of a misleading headline, does provide us with some further fuel for this Ubaldo Jimenez vs The Rockies debate that just won't die.
We saw on Wednesday that Ubaldo Jimenez did want to be traded, that he was put off by not getting an extension, but now Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez have words to send back to Jimenez:
"I don't like bad-mouthing people," Tulowitzki told CBSSports.com Friday. "But it's tough to hear those things.
"While I've been here, everybody's been treated fairly. There's a certain point in this game where you go play and you shut your mouth. And you don't worry about what other people are doing."
Whoah ho, this is getting real, now! Let's see what Gonzalez had to say:
"...we all wish him the best because he's a great person and a great athlete."
YEAH! You get him, Cargo! You tell that ungrateful jerk what's up!
Seem a bit silly? I thought so, as well.
OK, clearly this doesn't make any sense. Tulowitzki had some frustrated quotes in Miller's article, but outside of the quote above, it didn't really get much more inflammatory. None of this sounds like "ripping". Tulo said they tried to find out what was up with Jimenez, but their teammate wasn't talking. Gonzalez stated that they're all in this game for the love of the game, but the quotes provided didn't point to a painfully embittered man who wanted to get in the middle of a media "he said she said" war.
Cargo also added that Ubaldo had already signed a contract, and that was the reason he didn't receive an extension (while conveniently forgetting that Tulo's big extension covered several years that Tulo was already under contract).
Again, no sense is being made here. Nobody seems to know what to make of it. The Rockies front office was clearly frustrated, Jimenez was frustrated, the team was frustrated, and now this is all being dragged up from the bottom of Lake Erie to throw off focus from the 2012 season. The quotes from Cargo and Tulo sound more annoyed with the situation and the fact that it IS a situation than with Jimenez himself.
This has gone beyond "Well, the FO is evil" and "Well, Ubaldo is clearly selfish". I don't think anybody has the complete story aside from Dan O'Dowd and Ubaldo Jimenez. Everything we're seeing now seems to be media attempts to spark a bigger war. We're grasping at straws and trying to force someone into the role of the "bad guy" when there might not actually BE a bad guy.
I don't think the Rockies hate Jimenez; I don't think he really hates the Rockies, either. It seems that the Rockies front office, Ubaldo Jimenez, the Rockies players, and the Rockies fans are all looking over their respective shoulders at what might have been and sighing.
All I can think to say at this point is to let it go. We've slung the mud, we've pointed the fingers, we've betrayed and felt betrayed in return. Ubaldo Jimenez does not play for the Colorado Rockies any longer, and we need to deal with it.