'nOne of that was accurate'

If world was Bud Light ad, Team General Manager Andy MacPhail simply would have said, "Dude."

But instead he spoke at length Friday at Warehouse regarding endless spinning about Erik Bedard trade and about endless rumors and conjectures regarding what was holding up trade. Let's look at what he said:

"This hasn't been my favorite period as you can imagine. ... I've been privately a little critical of 'journalism.'"

Now, more publicly so.

MacPhail called initial reports of the trade, from Jan. 27, "premature." He went on to say: " ... this is a big move and both teams need to satisfy themselves ... so it took an extra week. To me it was never of much impact whether I was up here Feb. 2nd or I'm up here Feb. 8th making an announcement. In May nobody will remember the date."

He hammered sports journos who wrote stories professing to know about why trade was slow to be finalized, saying "it's unfortunate that we had to go through a slew of rumors and scenarios" and added "none of that was accurate."


Andy MacPhail to reporters:
You're embarrassing yourselves.
And he wrapped up his very low-key yet unmistakable lambasting with the following: "We have to live with the consequences of this action and so do our fans." The "real reason" for the delay, according to MacPhail, was that Seattle GM Bill Bavasi "was thinking this was going to be a three-for one," where the Orioles had five players in mind.

Wayward O takes a couple things from this:

• unlike Yankees and other teams, Os still have bad relationship with reporters
• having good relationship with reporters is crucial
• conversely, having good team is more important than a few extra page views
• MacPhail is very smart and has ability to be critical without being strident
• organization needs to work on relationships with media and vice-versa
• MacPhail seems like the guy who might be able to do this...

The Ken Rosenthals of the world clearly have a hatred for Orioles and Rosenthal especially seems intent on damaging team with everything he writes. Yet even though he makes things up out of thin air, he still seems to be afforded more benefit of doubt and credibility than team itself.

Hopefully recent events will change this and team will regain respect in terms of its word, which of late it seems to be upholding over and over again. Nobody seems to believe it, but MacPhail seems to be in charge. All good things.

Oh and um in case you didn't hear, Erik Bedard is gone but we have Adam jOnes.