I was about to post about the Wily Mo Pena-Bronson Arroyo deal, and I based it on kicking Eric Wilbur in the teeth for his "gentleman's agreement" line on his blog. But now that line is gone, and the post starts with what was the second paragraph.
So did Wilbur realize he was wrong? If so, why not cross the line out or admit it was incorrect in a separate post or in an update? Why scrub the line instead of owning up to a dumbass comment?
Clearly, I'm more pissed because it screws up the premise of the following post, but hey, what can I do? Wilbur totally caved/showed some modicum of integrity by correcting a mistake, even if he did it in an underhanded, "I never said that" sort of way.
Whatever. Here's the now obsolete post:
Pity poor Eric Wilbur. As news broke of today's Red Sox deal sending
Bronson Arroyo to Cincinnati for outfielder Wily Mo Pena, the
boston.com blogger had to rely on his own memory in recalling
Bronson's recent contract extension with the Sox. It was a three-year
deal under Bronson's Market value. Wilbur seems to recall a
gentleman's agreement, where the Sox said they would not trade Bronson
in exchange for the lighter salary. And thus, Wilbur's hackles are up,
claiming the Sox reneged on a handshake deal and should be ashamed of
themselves. He writes:
"The moral? Don't make any gentleman's agreements with the Red Sox."
Poor Wilbur. If only there were a way to look up written articles from
the recent past. Something like a virtual library, where things that
have been written are stored forever. And there would be this clever
and easy way to sift through the veritable googol of pages in that
virtual, world-wide library, so he could find just what he was looking
for by typing in some key words.
Had that technology existed, and Wilbur typed in the words "arroyo
deal," he would maybe have found Chris Snow's Boston Globe article on
the deal, dated Jan. 20:
The Sox, according to Arroyo, told him they have no immediate
intentions of moving him.''They didn't give me any guarantees," said Arroyo, who began looking
into buying a place in Boston. ''But Jed and Ben [Cherington] both
stated to me there were no deals on the table for me now, and they
felt pretty strongly I wouldn't be traded anywhere in the near
future."
Or maybe he could have found the Providence Journal's take, where Sean
McAdam had this:
"I want to stay here for my whole career," said Arroyo. "I think it's
a move that's going to be beneficial to me as well as the team for
right now, at this point in my career. Hopefully they see it that way
and don't trade me."Arroyo spoke with co-general managers Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherrington
before agreeing to the deal and received no guarantees that he
wouldn't be dealt."But Jed and Ben both stated to me that there were no deals on the
table and they felt pretty strongly that I wouldn't be traded
anywhere, anytime in the near future," Arroyo said. "Not that they
could guarantee me any security for the lifetime of the contract. But
at no time in the near future did they see me going anywhere."
That could have gone a long way in stirring Wilbur's memory, and maybe
he would start to see that there was no "gentleman's agreement," as he
so eloquently put it. Heck, a little more digging on this
interconnected, web-like portal of information would likely have
yielded this AP story on espn.com, which stated:
Arroyo said neither of the Red Sox co-general managers, Jed Hoyer and
Ben Cherington, could promise him that he won't be traded.
But hey, we don't live in a world with that sort of unlimited access
to information. Would that we had such a fast and easy portal, almost
like a superhighway of ideas and information!
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