Athletes who did not speak to the media

Bonds would have given you one if only he had known that Marcelo Rios had cooperated.

And I remember with delight the Tribune reporter writing, "Albert Belle, who was playing cards next to me, was not available for comment."

 

Guys like that are the worst, because you're obliged to seek them out thinking it might be "one day" and they get to repeatedly be jerks because it is, in fact, "the next."

That's why I say, give me the guy who never talks. Fine. We're all grownups, we can work around that. But subjecting people to repeated, random rudeness or even ridicule just because they're trying to do their jobs is some level of sub-human.

 

I recall the Curtis Pride days at Bill and Mary. He was a good interview then but when he reached the pros, he was even better IMO. He's a great story.

 

As long as we're talking Virginia athletes in the niceness category, I'll throw in Brandon Inge. He's a classy individual. What I think strikes me the most about Inge is that he still appreciates being a big-league ball player. He still understands how lucky he is.

 

I got lucky and got Bonds on a good day. He didn't say anything of great substance, but he hadn't talked in a few weeks so all of the Bay Area papers picked up my story and none were too happy about it.

Trust me I've been on the other side where the prima donna superstar who was on the team that I covered, rarely talked to anyone and we'd have to pick up quotes from out of town papers because he only talked if he felt like it, or in a press conference situation where it was rare to get him to say anything of substance...

 

Correct. Carlton was never a problem because you knew he wasn't going to talk, wasn't going to make exceptions. It was easy enough to work around him.

The guys who drive you crazy are the ones who can't make up their minds. Some days they're talking, some days they aren't. Or they're only talking to certain people. Major pain in the ass.

 

Didn't Rocket Ismail decline interviews for a while?

And then Dale Murphy -- well, if you were a female reporter in the locker room. Right?

 

Yes, Dale Murphy would not speak in the locker room or ever in the dugout to females. Only on the field and then only occasionally.

 

Herschel Walker stopped talking in his last season with the Vikings. I still would go up to him at least once a week and ask him to comment on something, just to make sure that day wasn't going to be the day he changed his mind and started talking again. "Walker declined comment" was seen fairly often under my byline that season.

Jerry Burns, the crusty old Vikings coach, got pissed off at a couple of reporters in his final season and pretty much stopped talking during the week, which was unheard of. Prior to that, Burns had been one of the all-time great quotes.

Ted Simmons, another motormouth who usually was a great quote, got pissed at a reporter in 1982 and didn't talk for a chunk of that Brewers pennant-winning season. By the postseason, he was talking again.

Tommie Harris, the Bears' recent defensive lineman, stopped talking to Chicago media a couple years ago. He also had been an above-average quote but thought he had been wronged.

As for Carlton, you actually could have a conversation with him in his later, post-Philly years but it wasn't about baseball and wasn't on the record. Finally, right at the end, when he realized he might need writers to get in the Hall of Fame, he started talking some on the record. Of course, it's impossible to believe that even the most revenge-minded guys in the BBWAA wouldn't vote for Carlton whether he talked or not.

 

Just to be clear, Walker didn't decline comment. He declined to comment.

 

Not sure about Rocket, but Quadry was apparently a bit of a pain in the ass, at least in his college days.

One of the guys at my college paper went through the SID to get an interview with Quadry before they played against our school. The interview started with this bit of fun:

"You've got five minutes and don't ask me about my brother. Now go."