A Quick Word On This Mo/Cano Thing

Actually, it's 2 words.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON'T CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE!!!!!!  Not at all.  Not even the slightest amount.  If you're later to the party than I am, Mo has a book coming out soon that was written by Wayne Coffee of the Daily News.  In an attempt to stir up interest in the book and snag the always-important headlines and pageviews, the DN posted a story late last night focusing on an excerpt from the book in which Mo questions former teammate Robinson Cano's desire and says he would pick Dustin Pedroia as his second baseman if he had to win one game.  The money quote:

“This guy has so much talent I don’t know where to start... There is no doubt that he is a Hall-of-Fame caliber (player). It’s just a question of whether he finds the drive you need to get there. I don’t think Robby burns to be the best... You don’t see that red-hot passion in him that you see in most elite players.”

Obviously something like this is going to be big news in the NY sports media shark tank and predictably, everybody is running with their EXTRA HOT TAKE on the "issue" today to boost their own pageviews.  It's the stupidest thing ever and a complete waste of time.

It's stupid on so many levels.  Cano is the better player and anybody with half a baseball brain knows that.  Mo is a player, not a talent evaluator, so his opinion on which player is better and which player he'd want more shouldn't be worth dick.  Mo also isn't Cano and isn't inside Cano's head, so to make the assumption that Cano doesn't have the "drive" and "red-hot passion" for the game is stupid and lazy and the same type of idiotic logic that everybody else uses when the criticize him for not hustling to first base.

Stupidest of all is Mo even choosing to make the statement in the first place.  I'm no longer young or naive enough to think that every athlete is a great person, but Mo is the one guy I would have put above the typical "trash a guy after he's left town" routine that we've seen play out with Cano this year and plenty of players in years past.  And make no mistake, that's what this is.  Mo is no longer a Yankee, Cano is no longer a Yankee.  There's nothing to be gained for either of them or the Yankees by Mo making this statement in his book except Mo selling more books.  If he had a problem with Robbie's desire and heart and drive, he should have said something to him about it in the clubhouse during any of the thousands of games they played together from 2005 to 2013.

At the end of the day, this reeks of something being blown up into a big story to sell books and nothing more.  The NY media is picking it up and running with it because that's what they do, but what's really going to come as a result of this?  Nothing.  It's empty, fake controversy, another shining example of the lame TMZ-ification of sports news coverage.   It's the type of stuff I never thought I'd have to deal with in connection with Mo and quite frankly, I don't have time to give a single fuck about it.  I'll wait until Jeter's post-retirement book comes out this time next year saying something similar about Robbie so I can not care all over again.