Jayson Werth Probably a Decent Human Being

There are plenty of whiny idiots out there with their ears to the ground in hopes of catching something, anything that they could morph into Werth-hate.

“See?!  SEE?!  He hates you,” they announce, manically pointing at stuff and hoping it will be enough for you to join in them in their quest of mindless ridicule, masked by the notion of “calling it like it is.”

We all know the “facts.”

• “HE JUST TOOK THE MONEY BLAH BLAH BLAH.”
• “OMFG HE SAID HE HATES THE PHILLIES WTF.”
• “HEY HE SAID THE PHILLIES COULD HAVE KEPT HIM AND IS JEALOUS LET’S FREAK OUT.”

Let’s back up for just a second and turn our attention to America’s stagnant beer puddle:  Milwaukee [EDITOR’S NOTE:  That’s the second Milwaukee-burn in two days.  What is bringing on this weirdly specific barrage of insults?]

Nyjer Morgan had no sooner hopped off the plane from D.C. when he grabbed a microphone and spouted off about how Washington isn’t a baseball town, and that the Nats suck, and that they screwed him out of his job.  Before he even left, reports indicate that he was being a lazy asshole as always (A fact that was ironically pointed out by Jayson Werth).  He is classless, dumb, and seems to be okay with the persona of a pocket-sized Manny Ramirez without the female growth hormones (yet).

That is a situation where the team (Nationals) and the player are glad to be rid of each other; where any comments made by Nyjer in public are intended to be derogatory and nasty, just to be sure that everyone knows what his feelings are on the situation and that they are nothing but toxic (just like himself).

That is how bad it can get.

If Jayson Werth and his comments and actions since leaving the Phillies are our version of “Nyjer Morgan,” which is to say, a situation where an ex-player is not happy with the Phillies, then we are having a pretty spectacular year.

It’s hard not to applaud when somebody who helped get the Phillies to the World Series twice receives our country’s budget for computer research as a paycheck.  I mean, you don’t applaud because we’d obviously rather keep him, but do you think years ago, when Jayson was sitting on the Dodgers bench with a phantom wrist injury, he thought he’d one day be on the other side of the country, temporarily setting the bar for outfielder salaries?  Do you think if somebody offered me $100 for this blog, I wouldn’t take it?  I would, and I’d expect you to be just as upset about it as when Jayson Werth went to the Nationals.

So then he said he hated the Phillies, which was obviously not a serious statement–based on how frank the statement was, based on Jayson’s quirky sense of humor that borders on nonsensical, based on his private nature because he wouldn’t say something like that out loud to a reporter if it were totally true–but boy, we just had to have something to hate him for, and everybody was making the “Good for him!” argument when it came to the money, so dickheads out there were perched at their computers just waiting for Jayson to say something they could use to start a revolution and get a bunch of commenters to write in all caps.

And finally, they got it; and after cleaning the excitement-stains out of their computer chairs, they wrote up a blog or two lambasting Jayson and using the “I hate the Phillies, too” comment as the selling point.  Maybe he did hate the Phillies a little at that moment.  He wanted to stay in Philadelphia, and when his friend/awesome guy Cliff Lee showed up, he wanted to be there even more.

I’d hate them a little bit, too; not because they particularly scorned me or anything, but because it’s like… shit, man.  They’re going to be awesome again.  And now I’m down here in D.C. and its just not the same and everything’s changing and just… shit. But then I’d swim a few pensive laps in my money-pool and probably feel better.

So maybe he was a little jealous, but he certainly couldn’t say he was jealous (if he was), because then his new team would be insulted.  Guy’s a pro.  He’s not going to wander over to the nearest microphone and dish out a couple of sound bytes just so writers with nothing better to write about than “HEY MAYBE JAYSON WERTH HATES US–BOO HIM” can have something to do that afternoon.

We had a talented outfielder who wanted to be here so much that his healthy regrets about his departure are leaking into his public comments.  It’s not like he’s holding a press conference to burn a Phanatic effigy or to announce that he left a big snake under Charlie’s desk.

So, on a final note, Zolecki brings us this platter of TERRIBLE THINGS J-DUB HAS SAID RECENTLY:

"“I’m excited to see those guys. We have some pretty long-lasting bonds. That’s one thing you can never take away from us, what we did there. It was pretty special. We turned a pretty negative situation into … I think they know what they have there right now. It wasn’t like that when I got there.“I was a pretty big part of what happened there the last four years. That will never change. I respect and am excited to see those guys. Once the game starts, it will be all business, for the most part.”"

BOOOOOOOOO BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

He can’t even promise to be “all business” when the game starts.