From JOEL SHERMAN
My colleague Mark Hale writes in todayâs Post about how Carlos Beltran delivered a pep talk to Jose Reyes before his breakout four-hit game Tuesday night that essentially went like this: Be yourself. If you want to dance and clap hands and smile broadly, just go ahead and do it. Essentially be yourself and let your game flow again. Maybe it is coincidence that Reyes has broken free. But I donât think so. In general, I think all of the talk about Reyesâ exuberance or Joba Chamberlainâs fist pump is ridiculous.
If that is what it takes for a player to perform his best, so be it. These are not robots. We donât have a cookie cutter that is going to spit out athletes to look and sound and behave from some 1950s handbook.
Not everyone is going to play with short haircuts and good manners. This isnât Hoosiers. This idea that you donât want to rile up the opposing team is ludicrous. The hell with the other team. If they donât like it, who cares?
It doesnât fit anyoneâs Hoosier narrative, but Larry Bird was one of the great trash talkers in NBA history. Would you change a second of his career so he would be silent?
To continue reading this item, and for more on the Mets and baseball, go to Joel Sherman’s Hardball blog.
