[letsgojunior]

Originally Posted by Chip R

The Reds once again let the media tell the story rather than tell the story themselves. I know DanO likes to play things close to the vest and not blab all kinds of stuff out there but in this case it was a bad move. When Kearns was sent down on rehab he could have said, "We're giving him so long down there then we'll call him up." or "We'll keep him down there a few days, evaluate him and make a decision at that time." Instead all we get are shrugs and "I dunnos" about Austin's status. Since no one knows what exactly his status is it becomes a breeding ground for rumor and innuendo. Maybe these guys who talked to Hal have it in for DanO so they concoct some rumor that DanO doesn't think Kearns is big league material. Now whether this is true or not is irrelevant. Even if Hal goes to DanO and tells him he's going to run a story that says that DanO thinks Kearns is a stiff and DanO denies it, people aren't going to believe him. If he doesn't comment it looks just as bad because it looks like they are hiding something. Instead of being open and controlling the story from their end, DanO and the Reds let the story play them. From now on this is going to stick to DanO like the "Old 30" remark stuck to Bill DeWitt. Whenever Kearns does something good people are going to say, "And O'Brien didn't think he could play. What does he know?" It doesn't matter if it's true because people are going to believe it's true even if DanO swears on a stack of bibles that it isn't. JimBo's problem was that he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. DanO's problem may be that he doesn't know when to open it.

Great post Chip.