Eskin Continued

Well there were enough comments (btw, all of them were excellent and thanks for dropping a line) to just respond to this Eskin stuff with a post, so that's what I've done.

Apparently I was a little off with what Eskin is all about (that's what not being from Philly can do) and if ESPN/AP misrepresented when on in the press conference, there is nothing I can do about that. But it seemed to me that Eskin was trying to get Manuel to go off in some form; maybe not at him, but he was trying to get something. I just rewatched the clip and it’s pretty clear that Eskin is suggesting to Manuel how to do his job and by suggesting how a manager should manage his team isn't what I would call reporting. There's a fine line between second guessing, reporting, and suggesting what one should have done. Where Eskin, all things considered, fell on that line may be a bit unclear, but I think he was trying to make something out of nothing.

As far as Charlie Manuel, as a neutral baseball far from Chicago, I thought he should have been fired last year. The Phillies should have made the playoffs at some point in his tenure, they have the talent to do so. Manuel did nothing with the Indians that would make anyone think that he’d be a good fit in Philly. The 2000 Tribe some how didn’t make the playoffs (explain that one: Lofton, Vizquel, Thome, Manny, Roberto Alomar when he was good, even Travis Fryman, to go along with Finley and Colon… I guess we could rag on the back end of that rotation, but whatever). Leyland’s turn around with the Tigers makes the hiring of Manuel look even worse. Hopefully, for Philly fans, Manuel will be fired sooner than later (nothing says panic than moving Meyers to the ‘pen). I can’t wait until I’m watching some random game on ESPN in early September and I see the stat, “The Phillies have gone 40-18 since the All Star Break… and they’re still two games out of the wild card.”

But back to Eskin, fairly or unfairly, he was my last straw. I'm just getting tired of reporters in sports media either performing hatchet job journalism or attempting to get on TV in some way. And as I said, maybe I'll find a few minutes to put those thoughts all together.