Mike Cameron's Hustle (formerly: A*h**s on the Internet)

[Guest Edgy DC]

Above or below average isn't the issue.

Do you really want me to name ten more flawed players? HIs comment is absurd on the face of it and you know it.

[Guest Spacemans Bong]

I find it amusing how writing for an anonymous website qualifies you as a journalist.

If that's the case, then I'm a f*ckin Pulitzer Prize winner for editing my college paper.

GothamBaseball.com is irrelevant.

[Theoldmole]

We're all a bunch of amateurs, and we're all a bunch of fans. None of us will ever know one tenth as much baseball as Sam Perlozzo, to pick a name at random.

And I see nothing wrong with that. I love baseball, love to talk about it, but I'm talking as a fan.

I've always thought that sports talk radio was the worst thing to ever happen to sports, because guys think that just because they can call into a show (or, in the case of Mike and the Dog, just because they have a show) it somehow makes them qualify as experts. The Internet is an extension of the same thing.

[nymr83]

being a columist for some paper doesn't necessarily make you knowledgeable or qualified either.

[Theoldmole]

Also true.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

]Omar himself thought he had "Alou in the bag" and there was an agreement in principal, which is what I reported. Alou telling his agent "to get it done" during the Pedro press conference was pretty much a "done deal" in my eyes. Well, neither Omar nort I knew that he was working the Giants for a player option, and that's what made him a Giant, not some some special relationship with his dad. To equate what I've written in a post as opposed to what I have written as a news story is rather silly, though. What should I have done, o wise and all-knowing one?

You probably should have done what you expect of Mike Cameron when he loses a fly ball in the sun and say, "My bad. I blew that one." I only quoted your silly message board discussion to dispute your contention here that you were somehow sandbagged by guys at the other site. At the least, you appeared to be just as wrong as anyone, and even if you were close, which I'm not disputing, you still missed. That's OK... But when you get called on these things, in my opinion you'd be better off owning up to it than the arrogant tap-dance you'd performed here and on that other message board. It makes you look bad.

Now I'll confess you were right -- my use of the word "assholes" was impolitic, wrong, and unecessarily dragged people here and over there into a lousy discussion. Sorry about that. I'll go change it to something less imflammatory.

All I intended to dispute from that article was that one bad sentence -- the notion that Cameron hadn't hustled. No need to interpret the argument as to whether Cameron was a "warrior," a great player, or even a good one. His relationship with the press doesn't matter. What team he plays for doesn't matter. His flaws don't matter, unless the flaw includes a lack of hustle which, as I've said, I hadn't seen nor read about even when he struggled offensively and certainly not when in an attempt to make a play he broke his face. What's at issue is whether he was dogging it.

I don't think you've made a case yet for that remark, and let's be frank: It's because there isn't one. Maybe it's time to admit to another mistake.