Let’s get out the report card. As trashing a rival city goes, I’d have to give the Kris Bryant, Ryan Dempster giggle fest a C minus grade overall. The fellows get credit for stirring up a fuss, and arousing the media and fans. But the execution was awkward. Bryant and Dempster had to sell it harder. They didn’t put their hearts into it. The insult seemed a little forced.
I’m not sure Bryant and Dempster were the best spokesmen to initiate this little kerfuffle. Of course Dempster finds St. Louis dull; I wouldn’t like this place at all as a visiting pitcher who had a horrendous career ERA of 4.82 when pitching in St. Louis. And Dempster claimed — or at least suggested — he rejected the idea of waiving his no-trade clause he had in his Cubs’ contract to accept a deal to join the Cardinals. This would have been late in 2012. And if Dempster exercised a his no-trade clause to block a deal to St. Louis … well, thank goodness. He was dealt to Texas and had a 5.09 ERA in 69 innings.
And Bryant is one helluva baseball player, and he seems like a solid guy. But let’s be straight about something here. He doesn’t have much of a personality, right? It’s kinda, well, boring. As a couple of Chicago sports talk-show hosts told me Tuesday morning, this was the first time that Bryant said anything that qualified as remotely interesting.
And, much like Dempster, Bryant hasn’t had a good time in St. Louis for an obvious reason. In MLB ballparks where he’s had at least 40 career plate appearances, Bryant has his lowest batting average (.228), OBP (.307) and slugging percentage (.382) at Busch Stadium. He’s struck out 31% of the time in his 140 PA at Busch. How humdrum.
(That according to The Sporting News.)
Disney films for kids … Junior Mints … Taylor Swift … How thrilling. Would somebody please get this wild man under control? And St. Louis is boring? OK, champ.
As for Yadier Molina’s response to this …
“Stars, elite players and leaders of their teams do not speak bad about any city,” Molina wrote on his Instagram account. “There should be respect and you should play and compete with respect.” A little heavy, yes. But that’s the Molina ethos. No one should be surprised by his oh-so-serious reaction. Proud man. Fierce competitor. Lives by the code … whatever the code is. (Loosely translated, I think the code goes something like this: Do not bleep with me.) I give the first part of his response a “B.”
Then Molina added, “Only stupid players and losers make comments like the ones made by Bryant and Dempster.” Oh, that’s an E-2. Molina lowered himself to the Bryant-Dempster level by making it personal in a name-calling way. Grade: D.