MLB

The Brewers Scuffle Becomes Clearer

Posted Aug 03, 2007 2:22AM By Mullet (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Brewers, NL Central, MLB Gossip, Milwaukee

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Usually a clubhouse shoving match like the one seen in Milwaukee today is met with a whole bunch of "we're going to keep this in-house" quotes, with variations like "we'll handle this internally". And initially, after the Johnny Estrada/Ned Yost public argument, that's exactly what we got.

But to Yost's credit, he clarified what happened in that dugout later on, and basically took his catcher off the hook:
What actually happened was that infielder Tony Graffanino, then Estrada, came to the defense of a teammate who they thought had been unfairly singled out by Yost for poor play. In an interview with the Journal Sentinel later in the day, Yost confirmed that Graffanino and Estrada were defending a teammate. Yost said it was unfortunate the incident was being interpreted by some as a problem between him and Estrada.

"Nothing could be farther from the truth," Yost said. "For Johnny Estrada to be portrayed as the villain in this, as somebody who instigated it, is not even close. To be honest, Johnny stepped up to protect his teammates."

Yost then goes on to open up his heart to us some more after the jump.
Yost admitted that he castigated his players for not playing with enough intensity and focus but said he didn't mean to single out one player. It was interpreted that way by Graffanino, however, and Estrada then joined the fray to back both Graffanino and his other teammate.

"That's what happened," Yost said. "I was upset with the way we were playing, not just in that game but over the last 10 days. I was frustrated; everybody was frustrated. It was my frustration boiling over to the team." Then, referring to Graffanino and Estrada, Yost added, "To their credit, they said something about it."
I've got to give a ton of credit to Yost for defending his players, and making sure they're accurately portrayed. It's like that scene in Miracle where the players finally found the courage to stand up to Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks outside the bus that snowy night, and Brooks knew that was the moment that his team became a real team, and then they won the gold medal. So maybe Ned Yost has us all fooled, with players standing up to him being the plan all along. Kinda brings a tear to my eye.

Previously on FanHouse:
Milwaukee is Burning

Tags: Johnny+Estrada, JohnnyEstrada, Ned+Yost, NedYost, Tony+Graffanino, TonyGraffanino

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