Many a Boston athlete has been through it before. Manny Ramirez. Nomar Garciaparra. Keith Foulke.
But nobody really expected it from Kevin Youkilis.
This is a man who withstood the humiliation of the Rick Porcello debacle. This is a man who shies away from nothing, not even Joba Chamberlain's 400-mph fastballs. Somehow, though, this is also a man who suddenly can't deal with the scrutiny of the Boston media.
On Wednesday, The Boston Globe published comments by the first baseman insinuating that the fans and the media in Beantown are overly critical and negative. In Thursday's edition of the Globe, he clarified his remarks.
"I woke up [Wednesday] morning, did my usual talk show, and I guess there was a lot of hype in the air, a lot of anger," he told the paper. "There wasn't any hostility. I've heard from people around here that I'm angry at the fans, which couldn't be farther from the truth. I've also been told I don't want to play here anymore, which is way far from the truth. I love playing here."
Youkilis also said that he didn't mean to pinpoint Boston. He meant to say that, in general, sports culture thrives on negativity, and it is frustrating for the players, who work as hard as they can to produce good results for their fans.
"You know, there's just comments from a select group of fans every once in a while that are directed toward not even me, just toward my teammates," he said. "Lots of times I feel like I have to stick up for some guys. Maybe it's not my platform to do that. But sometimes you get frustrated when you have teammates that go out there and really work hard."
Some highlights from Youkilis' rant in Wednesday's Globe:
- "I'm just annoyed with the media as a whole. People write stuff about players on this team throughout the whole year, and it's been going on for years and people just keep writing crap."
- "One guy has a bad game one night and they're all over him and the next night he has a good game and he's a hero."
- "I understand everything's not positive in this world. And negative stuff sells. But I come to the ballpark and go to a football game or basketball games. I don't even think you can take kids to a game anymore. There's so much negative yelling and screaming at players. People don't even root for their team anymore. They just root against the opposition's players. They're so angry at people."
If Boston gets to be too much for him, Youk can always pack up and take his act to someplace like Pittsburgh, where the silence will certainly be deafening.
