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Originally Posted by TitovFTW
You're really reaching for narratives here.
Also as I remember it, the Escobar fielding thing was squashed pretty early on in the season. Was a few cases of him interfering with the outfielders, but you'd be hard pressed to find any incident of it happening or being brought up in the last 1/2 of the Jays season.
Disagree with the black eye paint as well. The latin players on the team all stood up for him, Vizquel even talked about how he didn't think what he wrote was wrong (Due to the fact that in the Latin culture, the word is used from such a young age and so liberally to mean something else then a mans sexual orientation) Considering he wrote things on his black eye paint from a lot before that, I don't think you'd see the Caucasian/English speaking players have any idea what it meant. That is a narrative that is really reaching in my opinion, I also think it's one that an incredibly small minority believe to be true, nor did many acredited writers/media type speak up on it.
In his time with Toronto no teamate has said anything bad about him publicly or has a manager. The narrative stuff is so overblown, especially with all the good things his teamates and general manager have to say about him. I don't think he's at an age where his skill set has regressed at all, and he's likely to return to somewhere close to the numbers he's put up his entire career. Yunel Escobar is a really good baseball player. He's not without his flaws on the diamond, and there is the though that if he could focus a little more he could make the jump to an elite short stop. I don't buy into the idea of him being a bad teamate, nor does it mean much to me. He's been able to produce more then he's failed on the field, I don't put much or any stock into trying to decipher off the field actions that is nothing but hearsay and usually narrative based.
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I don't think I am reaching, maybe relying on too few sources but it was clear with Johnson and Vizquel that late in the season he was still being a dick on the field.
You are wrong on the eye black as well. Sportsnet looked back at the game film and saw that he didn't put al ot on his eye black and when he did it was other immature crap that he put on there.
Also every guy they talked to said that the maricon comment wasn't Latin common phrase and a stupid thing to put on there. Zaun said it was one of the first Spanish word he knew. Mccown knew it, Ashby knew it, other guys from other teams all said it was a well known word amongst MLB players.