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WEEI’s Red Sox insider Rob Bradford joins the show to talk about the Fenway fans booing Willson Contreras and reports that the 1st baseman has been nasty with the media.

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00:00How do you think this Wilson thing plays out?
00:01Now, the booing, he didn't address it post-game, correct?
00:04But Tracy just sort of defended him.
00:05And it seems like most people are willing to just let this go.
00:08He's sick.
00:09He's injured.
00:10He's some combination of that, correct?
00:12Yeah.
00:12The way that I had put it so expertly on the Baseballs and Boring show yesterday
00:17is that it was like people buying a ticket to the best-reviewed Broadway play on the planet.
00:23They show up and the lead character forget his lines.
00:26Like, this isn't what we signed up for.
00:28Right.
00:29But, you know, I think that, as I also said, I think a lot of people who booed
00:33probably would want their boos back.
00:35It's a guttural reaction.
00:37That's the second I used it.
00:38Sorry.
00:38But it's a guttural reaction.
00:40Yeah, it's your instinct.
00:41It is.
00:41It's your instinct as a Boston fan to say, hey, listen, we appreciate the good play
00:46and we don't appreciate when you don't hustle.
00:48We've done it for years and this is how it works.
00:51But as I said, I think that they would want it back because of all the circumstances involved,
00:55many of which Chad Tracy pointed out about, you know, him being sick, him having, you know,
01:00a bunch of injuries and him like being hit in the head, whatever it was a week ago.
01:05Well, obviously a much different situation, but I can't help but think of Papelbon's incident
01:08with Bryce Harper.
01:09Bryce Harper didn't run out, didn't hustle on some, I think it was a fly ball.
01:13I don't think anybody is grabbing Wilson Contreras by the throat.
01:19But what I'm saying is in baseball, this can be a thing where players can also police that.
01:24Such a different situation.
01:25It's almost not worth comparing.
01:27I just love that image of Papelbon grabbing him by the throat.
01:30It's unbelievable.
01:31It's crazy.
01:32One of the first podcasts we did in the Baseballs and Boring podcast was when the Phillies
01:36were in the World Series and Papelbon, we had Papelbon on and he said, basically,
01:40like he made Bryce Harper a better player because of doing that.
01:44And I'm like, okay, I get that.
01:46I get that.
01:47So, but, you know, you think about how young Bryce Harper was, how old Papelbon was.
01:53And I say that because, you know, Wilson Contreras has a lot of benefit of the doubt here.
01:58He has a lot of goodwill in the bank.
02:00And not only in terms of being a veteran guy, but in terms of this year of what he's done.
02:06So, and also the players understanding all the circumstances that were new that was
02:10going on with him leading up to that moment.
02:13Okay.
02:13Now, Sean McAdam, MassLive, writes that Contreras has failed repeatedly this year,
02:20repeatedly declined to speak with the media, sometimes angrily and profanely.
02:25What do you make of that account?
02:27Is that accurate as far as you've been, is that your experience?
02:30Well, I think it is accurate at times.
02:33It was accurate.
02:34I know that I think after the last game in LA, I wasn't there.
02:39I was on a red-eye flight because who doesn't want to take a red-eye flight home?
02:43But I think that he was, he wasn't in a great mood there.
02:46He might've snapped at some reporters after that.
02:48So I don't think that's inaccurate.
02:51I do think that there, it's not like one of these things where, for instance, Devers just
02:58stopped talking to me, right?
03:00But he kind of hid behind the interpreter thing or no?
03:02No, no.
03:03He just stopped talking to me.
03:04Like we would, there was times where we would wait behind him for an hour after a game and
03:11just said, dude, are you going to talk?
03:12And he wouldn't.
03:13Yeah.
03:13He wouldn't say, he said, no, no, no.
03:15And so when we talk about Contreras, about snapping back at people, like at the same
03:21time, he has gotten up there a lot in, in uncomfortable times as well.
03:27You know, like with the, you mentioned the Duran thing, right?
03:29He got up there and addressed the Duran thing.
03:32Yeah.
03:32He squashed that.
03:33Yeah.
03:33So, uh, so I, I wouldn't go down that road.
03:38I understand like what Sean's saying is, is accurate because there has been times where
03:42he's been surly about things, but at the same time, I've seen enough.
03:45There's not enough athletes who are like that, who just won't talk.
03:49They're just shutting it down for good.
03:50And he has never shut it down for good.
03:53And, and even it's weird because even when you think that he's really, really just doesn't
03:58want to talk to anybody, whatever, then he'll pop up and do something on social media.
04:02You know, like he, he never has those challenge the fans to meet him after the, yeah, exactly.
04:07And, and, you know, or, or when we put up the, you know, they, about the plane and
04:12they said, you know, Hey, you can buy the baseballs in a boring plane.
04:15And he put up the prayer sign said, please.
04:17Uh, and, or just now, you know, someone insinuated that they were cheating and he had
04:22like, uh, like a million laughing emojis or something like that.
04:27So he, he never has disappeared.
04:29And, and my guess is that he will not disappear this series as well.
04:33Um, and even with the Duran thing, that was every opportunity to just go off on a bunch
04:39of people, including Duran.
04:41Yeah.
04:41And he didn't.
04:42And I said at the time, I thought that ever since the Washington nationals week where he
04:47gets suspended, he had been trying to reel it in.
04:50He had been trying to like, be that leader, be that guy.
04:54Now it's never good to say, to say, I'm not talking and curse out the media, whatever
04:58it is.
04:59That's never good ever.
05:01But I, I wouldn't say that this is enormous problem.
05:04All right.
05:04But he will, at some point when he speaks next, he'll have his answers could be interesting.
05:08Just to recap a lot of things, including his health, which is possible concussion, possible
05:13illness.
05:14Maybe he got a sheet of sick.
05:15I don't know what's going on.
05:16The most important thing here is to figure out if this concussion is, is we're going to look
05:21back and say, this is the fork in the road moment for his season, because he hasn't been
05:26the same guy since that.
05:27That's just a fact.
05:28And we've, and we've seen this with players plenty of times before.
05:32We've seen it with players where it's impacted their entire career.
05:35I'm not saying that's happening.
05:37Even Chapman had the guy picked off and Contreras had the Aaron throw.
05:39That was him right that missed the throw of the night.
05:41Yeah.
05:41He hasn't seemed right in, and you know, whether it's because he's sick with a concussion, but
05:46whatever it is, but you need, this is all we know is that we, you need.
05:51Wilson Contreras to be good.
05:53There, there's no room for interpretation.
05:54It comes back to, you know, where it, Ted, I, Ted was onto something in the sense that
06:00you cannot just expecting all these guys to keep doing what they're doing.
06:04You need help.
06:05You need Adley Rushman.
06:07You need me.
06:08You need a good Contreras.
06:09You cannot take a step back.
06:11Even though you're playing against crappier teams, you cannot take a step back.
06:15And Contreras is a part of that.
06:16No.
06:17Seven to seven texter.
06:19They booed Yaz in 68.
06:20Eight was baseballs and boring active then.
06:22And did you cover that?
06:23Yes.
06:24Dad foe was running the account that it's a good point.
06:29I mean, but you know how it is.
06:31It's funny because Red Sox fans, they get, I think they take great pride in this.
06:36We appreciate good baseball.
06:38We appreciate this.
06:39We appreciate joy is still such a big, no, it's, I don't think there's any question about
06:43it and, and so when you don't do things the right way, or even, even this, where, you know,
06:49if you are perceived by the media as like, you're not being accountable, accountable
06:53is the most important word about playing in baseball in Boston, not even close.
06:58So if you are being perceived as not being accountable, then that's a problem.
07:03And people are going to turn against you and running out, not running out a ball.
07:07Like that's, that's non-negotiable for Red Sox fans.
07:10Update from Toronto Rogers center tonight.
07:12Chris Cotillo reports Adley Rutschman will go through a workout at Rogers center expectation.
07:16He will be active tomorrow.
07:18Chad Tracy said it would be a challenge to carry three catchers.
07:20So the move will come.
07:22That's that's thing.
07:23I like Jake Rogers getting DFA.
07:25I mean, well, I mean, there's a scenario where you can send Connor Wong down.
07:29Ooh.
07:29Yeah.
07:30I mean, I mean, you can option on him.
07:31Yeah.
07:32So, I mean, you can do that if you want to hold on.
07:35Jake, Jake Rogers is, you know, a good guy to have around.
07:38Right.
07:38Yeah.
07:39And if somebody gets hurt, you need him.
07:40And Connor Wong has not been good lately.
07:42Now, the caveat to that is that Sonny Gray really, really likes throwing a Connor Wong.
07:48And Adley Rutschman, according to your source, hates the Yankees.
07:53Threatened to be retired.
07:55Well, yeah.
07:56So, I don't want to put words in it.
07:58So, that's why we're, I think, oh, I have the sound.
08:00So, we have sound.
08:01We'll send that over to Stiz and we'll have the exact clip that we're talking about.
08:06What a tease for the podcast tomorrow.
08:08You've got to listen to baseballs and boring.
08:10Let's go to Bobby in the car, though, in the meantime.
08:11Hey, Bobby.
08:12Cookie!
08:14Okay, we're going to put the cookie back on hold.
08:16Let's go to Chris in the car.
08:18Hey, Chris.
08:19Hey, guys.
08:20Hey, so, just a second thing first.
08:24For Wilson, man, those are just boos of love.
08:27We love the man.
08:28We know he can do better.
08:30We're rooting for him.
08:31We're just giving him the business a little bit.
08:32That's all right.
08:33He's good.
08:35But about the whole Yankees suck chant.
08:37Yep.
08:38Yankees suck has zero to do with the wins and losses in the columns.
08:41Nothing.
08:42It's that the Yankees, philosophically, organizationally, and just by their very existence, suck.
08:48And the fact that we scream it when we know our team is terrible just fully underscores how badly they
08:55suck.
08:56Thanks, guys.
08:57Hey.
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