This morning's Enquirer has a somewhat scathing article on how Brandon Phillips refused an interview request from John Fay last week because as Phillips put it "I've been around here a week and now you're gonna try to talk to me?"
Fay went on to write:
Fay goes on to speculate that Phillips is building a list of reasons why the Reds may be willing to part with him in the future and that's why folks like Frazier and Valaika are seeing increased time at 2nd base....the larger issue here is why Phillips wouldn't talk to me. It was because he wasn't one of the first three position players I wrote about.
Phillips resume now includes this incident in addition to:
--not running out a fly ball on July 21, 2009
--Ignoring a take sign on a 3-0 pitch vs KC on June 14, 2009
--Saying on Aug 31 that he had a broken bone in his wrist only to say the following day that it was merely a bruise
Phillips can accept interviews at his own discretion but he invites criticism like this article when he does. I have to question his judgement in choosing to do this in early Spring Training.
Lack of leadership is a huge reason why they splurged and brought in Scott Roolen and maybe to a lesser extent Orlando Cabrera.
I thought this was a very well balanced article written by Fay.
Incidently you won't find this article on line until tomorrow. The Enquirer is making an effort to make certain stories exclusive only to print customers and this policy probably deserves a thread of its own.