Return of Buck

[spiritof66]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

Buck is great.  Class act to not throw anyone under the bus in regards to the Britton situation.

I hope he gets that ovation, too.  And I think he will.

Utterly classless for Buck to try to put blame elsewhere for his historically crappy decision, and to do so without naming anyone so that he could say that Buck's wrong. Buck alone made the decision, and yet he tries to make himself look selfless by saying he's protecting someone else. Who could it be? Britton saying he didn't want to go in? Ubaldo demanding to pitch and blackmailing Buck with compromising photos? The bullpen saying that Ubaldo looked sharper than Britton? Come on, the only person Buck is protecting is Buck.

Classy would be to say, "Yeah I made that call. I see now what a bad decision it was, and I understand that it made a lot of Oriole fans very angry. If I could do it again, I would have put Britton in for as long as he could go. Maybe we would have lost anyway, but that was the right call."

[Moose Milligan]

2 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

Utterly classless for Buck to try to put blame elsewhere for his historically crappy decision, and to do so without naming anyone so that he could say that Buck's wrong. Buck alone made the decision, and yet he tries to make himself look selfless by saying he's protecting someone else. Who could it be? Britton saying he didn't want to go in? Ubaldo demanding to pitch and blackmailing Buck with compromising photos? The bullpen saying that Ubaldo looked sharper than Britton? Come on, the only person Buck is protecting is Buck.

Classy would be to say, "Yeah I made that call. I see now what a bad decision it was, and I understand that it made a lot of Oriole fans very angry. If I could do it again, I would have put Britton in for as long as he could go. Maybe we would have lost anyway, but that was the right call."

Sure.

[Sports Guy]

Yea, he blamed someone else without blaming someone else. That’s pretty crappy.

[Aristotelian]

5 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

...okay, the last 7 years don't count for anything?

And unless he's naming a name or telling exactly what happened in that moment, he's not deflecting anything. 

If you think he's deflecting it, explain who he's throwing under the bus?

He is saying "I'm not to blame but I won't tell you who is." He does not have to throw anyone under the bus to try and get himself out from under it. Truly wearing it would be, "It was my decision, I stand by it. It was the right decision and I'd make it again." Or, "It was my decision, it was the wrong decision, and I accept blame." Instead he alludes to innocent people who would be hurt if he told the full story. Don't get me wrong, I liked many things about Buck and even supported/understood the Ubaldo decision, but he is deflecting here in these comments.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Aristotelian said:

He is saying "I'm not to blame but I won't tell you who is." He does not have to throw anyone under the bus to try and get himself out from under it. Truly wearing it would be, "It was my decision, I stand by it. It was the right decision and I'd make it again." Or, "It was my decision, it was the wrong decision, and I accept blame." Instead he alludes to innocent people who would be hurt if he told the full story. Don't get me wrong, I liked many things about Buck and even supported/understood the Ubaldo decision, but he is deflecting here in these comments.

Got it, he's not throwing anyone else under the bus.  

[Jagwar]

1 hour ago, Moose Milligan said:

 

Semantics.  He didn't name names. 

He only had to name one name, himself. Yes?

[Moose Milligan]

Just now, Jagwar said:

He only had to name one name, himself. Yes?

Sure.

Maybe it's just me, but in there've been situations in life where I've felt the need to protect someone.  And not say a name, or not tell a story, or not divulge personal information.  And I really don't see a giant difference here.

The main difference is that some of you guys are still emotional 7 years later and feel the need to know every little thing that happened...because we feel like we deserve it for some reason.  And it bugs you that Buck won't share it, but alluded to a greater story.  

[Birds08]

Agree with all the negative views on the comment.  But to me that one decision and that more recent comment don't negate the fact that he turned us into a credible organization again after close to 20 years as a wasteland of an org.  

I think he deserves a lot more credit for doing that than some people here are giving him.  I really don't think we had "loaded" teams.  He got more than the sum of the parts.  I don't have time at the moment to look back at all our top draft picks from the late 2000s and early 2010s, but other than Manny don't recall any off the top of my head who came anywhere close to expectations.  Remember guys like Wieters while very good didn't reach expectation, other high end draft picks like Loewen, Matusz, Gausman (at the time) didn't pan out.  When we suddenly got good no one expected it, and was more improbably given our horrible drafting.  If you look at our 2014 roster, we had two guys with over 300 PAs with OPS over 800.  Our starting pitching was great that year, but it was a cobbled together (not loaded) staff that happened to work out.

If really want to not give Buck credit, I think more attribution has to be given to the division being a bit weaker those years as opposed to us being star studded.

 

Anyway, Buck wasn't perfect, but he was pretty damn good overall.

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

Sure.

Maybe it's just me, but in there've been situations in life where I've felt the need to protect someone.  And not say a name, or not tell a story, or not divulge personal information.  And I really don't see a giant difference here.

The main difference is that some of you guys are still emotional 7 years later and feel the need to know every little thing that happened...because we feel like we deserve it for some reason.  And it bugs you that Buck won't share it, but alluded to a greater story.  

But he did blame someone else, he just didn’t say who.

You can protect someone and not saying, well innocent people would be hurt if I said something. That’s 100% trying to deflect the blame.  It’s just a passive aggressive way of doing it.

[HandsomeQuack]

Buck's quotation was a little weird. Like others have said, he should have just owned it and not implied that some ghastly figure was the real reason for it.

I thought (both at the time and still now) that Ubaldo came in because Buck was a slave for the save and was saving Britton for the 12th. He was never one to use his closer in high leverage non-save spots.

But I love Buck, and I wish I could be there for his ovation tonight.

[Moose Milligan]

1 minute ago, Sports Guy said:

But he did blame someone else, he just didn’t say who.

You can protect someone and not saying, well innocent people would be hurt if I said something. That’s 100% trying to deflect the blame.  It’s just a passive aggressive way of doing it.

We can agree to disagree.

[Aristotelian]

3 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Got it, he's not throwing anyone else under the bus.  

2 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Sure.

Maybe it's just me, but in there've been situations in life where I've felt the need to protect someone.  And not say a name, or not tell a story, or not divulge personal information.  And I really don't see a giant difference here.

The main difference is that some of you guys are still emotional 7 years later and feel the need to know every little thing that happened...because we feel like we deserve it for some reason.  And it bugs you that Buck won't share it, but alluded to a greater story.  

The thing is, by raising the "innocent people", albeit without naming a specific name, he invites the speculation of who that might be. Some here are assuming he means Britton. I have no idea but he is playing both sides inviting the speculation and playing the protector. If he really wanted to protect the innocent he would not have even mentioned them. 

[HakunaSakata]

Just now, Moose Milligan said:

Sure.

Maybe it's just me, but in there've been situations in life where I've felt the need to protect someone.  And not say a name, or not tell a story, or not divulge personal information.  And I really don't see a giant difference here.

The main difference is that some of you guys are still emotional 7 years later and feel the need to know every little thing that happened...because we feel like we deserve it for some reason.  And it bugs you that Buck won't share it, but alluded to a greater story.  

...but who could he possibly be protecting (other than himself)? That's what's so weird about the quote. At that point is his tenor with the team , Buck was 100% making all of the on field calls. There's no chance anyone took that responsibility out of his hands. Not even our beloved fitness guru turned whipping boy, Brady Anderson. 

[Jagwar]

3 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

Sure.

Maybe it's just me, but in there've been situations in life where I've felt the need to protect someone.  And not say a name, or not tell a story, or not divulge personal information.  And I really don't see a giant difference here.

The main difference is that some of you guys are still emotional 7 years later and feel the need to know every little thing that happened...because we feel like we deserve it for some reason.  And it bugs you that Buck won't share it, but alluded to a greater story.  

Understandable, but whose name would he even reasonably name? Britton? He said he was healthy and ready. A coach? Nonsense, the buck stopped with Buck. Ubaldo? Well Buck, you put him on the mound instead of the best reliever in baseball.  

 

[Sports Guy]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

We can agree to disagree.

But what are you disagreeing about? The comment was made. It 100% is him trying to deflect some blame otherwise, why even say it?