Friday, October 2, 2015

STUMBLING THROUGH DELUSION

"I don't block people unless they're belligerent, curse or send me too many tweets." 
--CJ Nitkowski after feeling pressure from his provocative Choke article


I'm not a mean person. I just like to make sure that when I am misunderstood or attacked for nothing... the person that did that action is reminded for the rest of their life that they made a silly mistake.  I'm a Leo... I hold grudges.  That's on me...

CJ Nitkowski can be delusional.  I only bring this up because earlier this week I recognized something pretty significant about him being a so-called analyst... he believes his opinions are law. He doesn't like to be disagreed with, he doesn't like to be questioned.  He appears to think he's untouchable.  He's blind when it comes to criticism and isn't too nice about it either.


I'm not going to get into a big thing with the back story and disappointment I found this week when I tried to engage him, politely on social networks about his opinion of Bryce Harper being choked publicly by Jonathan Papelbon.  Now look, I find Pap to be a nasty player. I find Harper to be incredibly arrogant. Those are my opinions. I root for neither, even though I know for a fact that there is talent all around there.  But when someone writes something about a confrontation and I disagree, I want people to hear my side.  That's what we do here at Bleeding Yankee Blue. We're a blog, we express opinion. You want to hear my opinions, you want to hear from all of our great BYB writers.  We're not nasty, we're pointed. Here's the thing though... we also have a dialog with every one of you, agree or disagree... that makes us unique. That's why you come to BYB.


CJ Nitkowski felt it necessary to bring to light something that many non-pro baseball players already realize.  Players fight.  Now, let me be clear... I know that.  I played ball pretty deep into my young life, never ever coming close to Pro, but my point is, I've seen fights in the dugout and clubhouse and it's been happening since Little League and by the way, it's been happening in competitive sports FOREVER. Men fight. Boys try to be Alpha-dog.  I've heard kids in my Little League dugout tell others that they suck, just to kill a teammate's confidence so they can feel better about themselves. It's wrong, but it's been going on for decades and no one knows that more than I.  I've seen fights, punches thrown, the whole thing.  Again, men are men, it's what we do.  One thing I've never seen is someone get choked.

Choking is, in my humble opinion, worse then a punch to the face. You can kill a guy. That's what I took issue with when Nitkowski wrote his piece basically saying that anything goes in a baseball clubhouse. And he can tell people that's not what he said... but it's essentially what he said. Don't get it twisted.  I felt like that should be open for discussion. Many did as a matter of fact.  Oh, and for the record, and this is a teaser... BYB will be releasing a terrific interview with Tanyon Sturtze next week and we asked him about the Papelbon-Harper fight.  Sturtze speaks about fighting in baseball clubhouses saying that teammates fight all the time, and it should be done in the clubhouse. It's not a big deal.


Absolutely Mr. Sturtze, but choking out in public or private is never OK.  Again, that's what I took issue with.

As you know, CJ Nitkowski "muted" me on Twitter earlier this week. Trust me, I don't lose sleep over it.  I was more blown away by the fact that he doesn't allow anyone else to express opinion against him.  This comment came in from a reader after we wrote THAT CHIP ON YOUR SHOULDER IS OLD & TIRED:
"I am not surprised to see this. Nitkowski did something very similar to me twice in the last couple of weeks when I disagreed with articles he wrote. He engages in personal attacks when you disagree with him. Its childish and juvenile behavior on his part. Am I surprised that he thinks violence is a perfectly acceptable way to handle disagreements? Nope."
There's plenty more of those but I just can't figure out why CJ doesn't like to have intelligent dialog with folks who disagree.  I mean, he's an analyst, he's not a prophet. And he appears to side with Papelbon. I find that strange.
In a nutshell, he's giving Pap a free pass, basically saying choking should be done behind closed doors. He kind of blasts Harper for speaking out of turn. He essentially saying it's Harper's fault, Harper started it.  I just can't get passed that, I'm sorry.


This tweet made me laugh:
I learned that CJ's delusional.  Last time I checked, I wasn't belligerent, I didn't curse and I didn't send him too many Tweets... but I got muted.  Let's review:


Now, you can tell me that I'm spending way too much time on this... you're right.  I just find it fascinating that this guy doesn't think he did anything wrong... not with the column, but with the flood of disagreement that followed.  I mean, is this guy kidding?

Sorry. You can't write a hot topic article and assume folks aren't going to ask you questions... and sure, some are being silly in their questioning, but it comes with the territory.  He's gotta have a thicker skin. I leave you with one of my favorites on the web... Craig Calcaterra of Hardball Talk that put it perfectly:
I'm done now.  Time to move on.

Don't be haters out there.  You have a provocative post, article, whatever... have a dialog.  All opinions matter.  No one is better than anyone else out there.  Trust me, CJ Nitkowski certainly isn't.

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