Just Shut Up and Play!

A couple of funny observations from highly paid athletes. Instead of taking their "defeats" and dealing with them, they choose to air our issues through the media. But it should be this simple. Shut up and play what you're paid to do.

Case #1 involves Florida Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez and his little feud with his manager Fredi Gonzalez.

Tuesday was an un familiar seat for Ramirez.
He should be in today's starting lineup.

In a Monday evening affair against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Ramirez was going after a blooped ball into shallow left field. Ramirez couldn't get to the ball in time. When he tried to filed the ball, he accidentally kicked the ball into the left field corner. No big deal and I'm sure we've all seen the replay by now. It was Ramirez didn't do after that.

Instead of busting his rear end into the left field corner to retrieve the ball, Ramirez appeared to be lightly jogging to get it, an effort not appreciated by his manager. Gonzalez pulled Ramirez from the game for his apparent lack of hustle. Ramirez was none to kind to his skipper.

"He can do whatever . . . He doesn't understand that. He never played in the big leagues."

And Ramirez proceeded to throw his Marlins teammates under the bus as well.

"We got a lot of people dogging it after ground balls. They don't apologize."

The apology part is in reference to Gonzalez wishing Ramirez would apologize to his teammates for his poor effort. While Gonzalez could actually care less if he personally receives one, he does feel strongly that the Marlins as a team deserve such. As of yet, Ramirez has neither delivered that apology and appears in no way to waver from his stance.

What cannot be lost is the support a couple of Marlins players have for Gonzalez and the move to not only pull Ramirez on Monday, but to bench him on Tuesday. Dan Uggla seem to place himself in his manager's corner.

"I think Skip needed to do what he needed to do, which was take Hanley out of the game at that time. Does that mean we love Hanley any less? No, we have all made mistakes. We've all done things like, 'Oh, maybe I shouldn't have done that.' But you move on, you move forward you get past it."

What Uggla very well could be saying is this. You showed a lack of effort. Sit down and take your medicine. Get over yourself and play the damn game. Most importantly, shut up! Well, that's how I take it anyway.

And by the way, Ramirez is the highest paid player on the Marlins roster due to 6-year, $70 million contract and he is the face of the Florida Marlins. Act like it.

The same could very well be said of Phoenix Suns big man Amar'e Stoudemire and is Case #2.

Odom played a brilliant Game 1 and deserved
all praises for it.

During an interview yesterday, Stoudemire was questioned about Lakers "asset" Lamar Odom and Odom's 19 point, 19 board effort in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. Stoudemire didn't exactly give Odom any props. Not so much as any ackonwledgment that Odom had a superb game. In fact, Stoudemire belittled Odom's effort.

"I'm not giving him no hype right now; he had a lucky game in Game 1."

I'd rather be lucky with a line like that Amar'e. What were your stats for the game? You managed 23 points which was a +4 in the scoring column (compared to Odom). Good, good. What's this? 3 rebounds? 3 freakin' boards was all? That's a -16! Plus, Odom only had one less rebound that the whole Suns starting five (20 to 19).

Another thing here. Stoudemire also talked of not having total focus. How can you not be focused playing the the conference finals? For the record, Stoudemire gets paid $16.4 million for not being focused compared to Odom getting $7.5 million for being lucky. Maybe Odom shouldn't be as focused. He could make more money.

I was always taught that rebounding isn't luck. It's effort and nothing else. You have to want the ball.

Odom could have taken Stoudemire's ball and run. But he didn't.

"So be it. Hopefully I can have another lucky one."

Way to take the high road, Lamar. Although I guess a great line or two would have been awesome for E! to put on your wife's show, but I'll take this classy move any day.

Amar'e - shut up and play. And don't forget, it's the Western Conference Finals. You need to be focused.

We're talking trash...

One of the things I do every day is not only check out what's making big news, but I also look for interesting pieces, articles, etc.

I came across a poll that was very interesting. SI.com recently conducted a poll of about 173 NBA players and asked them this. Who's the biggest trash talker in the league? Some answers won't be too hard to figure out, but a couple did raise an eyebrow. And some were very deserved. I'm not huge on trash talk, but these guys obviously are.

The top trash talker didn't really surprise me. It was the amount of top votes he "garnered". That was a bit of a hint. It's none other than Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics. Garnett for all his talking received, get this, an astounding 62%! Sure, the Big Ticket can get a bit animated on the court, but there's obviously more to it than what we see. I guess going from Minnesota to Boston forced KG out of his shell.

Second place goes to the always charming Kobe Bryant. Kobe does have the hardware to backup his mouth, though. Four rings, an MVP and 11 All-Star nods earns you that right, if you view it that way. But with KG dominating the vote, Bryant only received 7%, and still managed the #2 slot.

Third goes to a Celtic teammate of Garnett's, Rasheed Wallace. This may be looked at as spillover of his days in Detroit, but Wallace deserves every right to make this "elite" list. Watch a Celtics game. You'll quickly see what I mean. And I'm not even referring to his interaction with the refs. He does it to opponents, too. I don't think his jaw ever stops moving.

Number 4 caught me a bit offguard. It's yet another Celtic, Paul Pierce. Three of the top for are from Boston. I hate to see what happens in a game of fish with these guys. I know Pierce can talk, but I didn't realize he talked this much. Apparently, the rest of the league has noticed this a lot more. Maybe it's because when I watch the Celtics, Garnett and Wallace chatter so much that my attention rarely goes to Pierce and his chatter.