In life, there’s a fine line between being emotional and being a baby. The same holds true for professional sports. Amateur and college athletes tend to get more of a pass on this, but when you’re a professional and you’re getting paid millions of dollars to play a game, constant whining tends to fall on deaf ears.
Cleveland Indians closer Chris Perez is as fiery a competitor as they come in Major League Baseball. However this competitiveness has boiled over into multiple confrontations with fans, both in the media and in person. Earlier this season, Perez ripped Cleveland sports fans for not supporting the Indians when the team was playing well. He was subsequently boo’d by the home fans as soon as he allowed 2 baserunners in his next outing. Not even a month later, Perez was in the news again, this time for criticizing Cleveland fans for blindly supporting the Browns (and not the Indians), and for rooting against LeBron James (savvy PR move, Chris) in an interview with the New York Times.
This past Saturday, Perez was involved in a pregame confrontation with a fan who was heckling him from the stands. According to Perez, the fan has been heckling him for four years. The argument, which was caught on video, included Perez walking over to the fan, using foul language towards him and then attempting to get him kicked out of the ballpark.
Chris Perez needs to grow some thicker skin.
I actually appreciate his aggressive personality. Frankly, Cleveland sports teams across the board have lacked this kind of attitude. A few vocal leaders in the locker room are needed on every good team; leaders that aren’t afraid to stand up to the big boys, especially within their own divisions. The problem with Perez is, his anger appears to be misguided. While we aren’t privy to all the conversations he’s had with his teammates inside the Indians clubhouse, having a propensity to lash out at fans shows a lack of maturity and focus.
Arguing with fans (whether it be through the media, on twitter or in person) is NEVER a good idea. Athletes will never win look good in the eyes of the public, and they will never look good in the eyes of management. Furthermore, the two-time All-Star’s gripe with Cleveland fans has been off-base from the beginning.
The Indians were having trouble drawing fans mainly because the team got off to a hot start last year and faded out of the playoff chase rather quickly in July and August. People didn’t forget that. Moreover, the Indians have been lacking an offensive spark for several years. I’ve been to many Tribe games in recent years; they’re a very frustrating team to watch for nine innings. And while Perez is usually a dynamite closer, people don’t buy tickets to baseball games to see the closer throw for one inning, which may or may not happen. The Dolan family and GM Chris Antonetti have struggled to put the necessary pieces in place to drive fans to the ballpark.
As for the the Browns, Cleveland is a football town. It always has been and always will be a football town. Few regions in the country are as rabid for football as Northeast Ohio. The best basketball player in the world growing up 30 minutes from Cleveland and playing for the Cavaliers, and decades of losing from the Browns couldn’t even change this fact. And speaking of LeBron, invoking his name in an effort to gain more support for you and your team is not a good strategy on any level.
Perez’s honesty and candor is refreshing. His desire to see the Indians as a competitive team that sells out every game (wait, hasn’t that happened before??) is admirable. It’s his edge that has made him an All-Star the last two seasons. But his behavior towards fans this season is bad for his team, who by the way are now 27-45 since June 1, and bad for the game of baseball. As a professional, he is expected to be less crass and have more class.
I hope for his sake his skills don’t deteriorate anytime soon. Because if his skills decline and he turns into just a surly, foul mouthed, washed up closer, then he’ll…well, he might just get his own TV show.