Asked if he spoke to the guilty parties, Ortiz said, “I think I did. But I do things in a different way.
“When I talk to any of the guys on the team, I don’t want to sound like I’m their dad. I make sure that they understand that it’s a friend, a brother, another player, talking to them. That’s why my communication with a lot of them is easy. I have a good relationship with everybody.
“It’s not my job to walk on anyone. I’m just an employee, just like anyone else. I’m not a babysitter or anything like that. I’m talking to another man just like me.
“There’s a difference between being a team leader and being a babysitter. Everybody has an idea about what they are here for.’’
This is where a lot of other people dropped the ball.
This is why this story stays alive.
Ortiz is right: It wasn’t the beer and the chicken, it was the where and the when. It was during the game, in the clubhouse, when players are supposed to be in the dugout supporting their teammates.
This is basic team stuff. You learn this in Little League, and even before that. How can you accept millions of dollars in salary and lose sight of that?
These players did. And there was nobody in a position of authority to remind them?
That is the most unfathomable aspect of this story.
“If I’m [messing] up, I can’t go to no one and let them know what they are doing wrong,’’ said Ortiz. “When it comes to a leader, I’ve got to do what I’m supposed to do, first of all. Then I have the right to go and talk to anyone else.
“That’s basically what I have been doing here through the years. But you only can talk until one point as a player. After that - managers, GM, front office - they take over. You have limitations to talk to another player like you are. After that, there is nothing else you can do.’’
Those of us in the media have asked numerous positional players what they knew about the beer and chicken, and 100 percent of them have played dumb.
Carl Crawford just said it the other day.
You wonder now. Really?
If Ortiz knew what was going on, it had to have been a topic of conversation on the team.
