Ever see the movie ‘Big Fan‘? It’s a pretty awesome indy flick starring Patton Oswalt about, among other things, a guy who finally gets to meet his favorite player, pisses that player off, and then gets beat up by said favorite player. That would suck.
I woke up this morning to an unsolicited message from Matt Garza on Twitter. Hooray, right? I’m not so sure …
@bleachernation thanks for the update on how my rehab is going… Funny how stuff being reported is either false or clearly off.. Alls good
— Matt garza (@Gdeuceswild) November 15, 2012
I really can’t tell if Garza – can I call him Matt? – is being sarcastic there, or if he’s just being playful, and using the tweet as an opportunity to reiterate that all is going well. I tend to think, unfortunately, that it’s the former (and based on some responses on Twitter, other folks read it that way, too). (UPDATE – see the update below from Matt.)
The update to which Matt refers is a really innocuous one, about him getting a scan this week on his elbow, in which I tell folks the scan was a planned one, and probably not reason for concern. The source of this information, linked in the post, is an ESPNChicago article. I concluded the post with “Hopefully the scan turns up clean.”
I thought it was, on the balance, a perfectly nice (boring, even) update on where things stand with one of the Cubs’ most important players. I didn’t draw any certain conclusions or offer anything other than reasoned speculation about his recovery process, gleaned from hours and hours of reading about this stuff. Even that stuff is pretty clearly caveated in words like “probably” and “likely.”
I don’t know where I went wrong …
But it’s a bummer, dude. I’ve made no secret that I’m a huge Matt Garza fan (a site search for cat’s pajamas, the term introduced into the site lexicon by Garza, turns up a shocking number of posts). If I thought for a second that Matt would actually correspond with me, I’d trip over myself to speak to him personally about his recovery. I am, after all, not a journalist – and there’s an expectation that players and management generally don’t speak with fan bloggers about actual news.
I hope the corresponding-with-Matt ship hasn’t yet sailed. (I responded to Matt that I’d be happy to include any additional information he’d like to share, but I’ll understand if he doesn’t respond. I’ll continue to think he’s the cat’s pajamas.)
If I pissed you off, Matt, I’m sorry. If I spoke out of turn or inaccurately, I’m sorry about that, too. That’s all I can offer, though, because I truly don’t know where I goofed.
Now, a piece of this about which I’ve got to be candid and fair: I’ve written at length about Matt Garza as a possible trade piece. Frequently, when talking about his elbow injury, or his role with the Cubs last offseason, I talk about those things within the context of how they affect his trade value. I am, first, a Cubs fan, so I do care about things like Garza’s trade value, as unsavory as that is when you’re, like, actually talking about a human being. That said, with respect to Garza specifically, I also repeatedly said that I was equally open to the idea of an extension with Garza, or a trade. (Another example: “As for the future of Garza, I remain open to either an extension or a trade. I could see either approach being good for the Cubs long-term, depending on the dollars/years in the extension, or the prospects/players in the trade.”)
And now I’ll just try to get over the thought that Matt Garza briefly, vaguely heard about Bleacher Nation for 10 seconds, decided I’d said something inaccurate, and now hates me – if he remembers me at all…
UPDATE, from the man, himself:
I know @bleachernation has good intentions.. Never has he written anything bad on twitter.. Justpassing info..alls well
— Matt garza (@Gdeuceswild) November 15, 2012
Whew. Thanks to Matt for passing along the health update, and clearing my terrified little conscience. You may resume your morning, and I can unclench.
My career sabitical has come to and end. Having taken a 6 month breather after 30 years of beating my brains out in the corporate world. Back to the grind. Will be traveling all over the world in my new position so I look forward to the updates here at BN to stay abreast of all things Cubs.
Best of luck – try not to stress too badly.
Fastball, I’m about to move from Chicago to Paris. If your travels all over the world ever take you there, we should meet up for a Cubs viewing party. I plan on getting MLB.tv next year just so I can keep watching the Cubs (no blackouts, hurray!). One nice thing about all the Cubs’ day games is that they’re in primetime in Europe! Best of luck with the new job.
I guess the stench of urine is not strong enough for you here.
Exactly. I’m also tired of people wearing deodorant and actually being productive.
Wait, what? You’re moving to Paris?
Yes sir. Will probably be there before Spring Training starts. Still have a lot of bureaucratic hurdles to jump, but the will is there. It will be a short term relocation. Probably back in Chicago around the start of 2014. I figure I can sit this season out and come back just as the Cubs are starting to compete again. In the meantime, I’ll have my MLB.tv.
Well that’ll make for a pretty awesome year, then. Tu parles Francais?
Non, je ne parle pas Francais, mais j’essaye d’aprendre. Je peux dire “je voudrais un verre de vin rouge, s’il vous plait.” C’est tout ce dont j’ai besoin!
That’s actually really good, Max. Let me know if you ever want to ask for food, too
Je le comprends bon (?), mais je ne le parle jamais. Depuis dix ans.
That was horrible.
Actually that wasn’t too bad. Just replace “je le comprends bon” with “je comprends bien” and that’s pretty much bang on.
I always get confused on when to use bon or bien. Is it a masculine/feminine difference? Or adverb v. adjective? I think it’s the latter as there is bon v. bonne for the masc./fem. I work with a number of French speakers so I pick up bits and pieces here and there. But, I really need to buckle down and start learning it properly before moving.
You and the Mrs. will always have a place to stay (for a year) if you want to take a Parisian vacation.
It’s actually hard to explain when it’s appropriate to use “bon” vs “bien”. I guess the best I could say is that “bon” is closer to “good” and “bien” is closer to “well”. For example, you’d say “bon matin” for “good morning” and “je ne me sens pas bien” for “I’m not feeling well”. Other than that, I don’t know that there’s a good trick for remembering the difference.
Thanks for the invite too. For now, I think our travel budget pretty guarantees that we won’t be leaving the North American continent any time soon but still, thanks.
I suspect that Garza may also be one of those people who does not approve of felines wearing human sleepwear.
Why do you hate Matt Garza so much?
Butch!
You blogged about a news article. If the article is wrong, that’s not on you. Garza may be good at finding the strike zone but in this case, he threw one in the dirt.
I think you missed the bigger picture here. Matt Garza tweeted about BN. Now all Garza followers will know about BN. All publicity, good or bad, is good.
Brett,
It’s all good, I was just in a bad mood last night. I’ll continue to read your website. I just want to let all the fans here know that the arm is great, nothing to worry about.
Matt
And now we wait with baited breath from Brett to verify that Matt Garza just replied on your blog.
Have you been eating chum?
Heh.
Thanks again for the update, and for the Tweets. Continued good luck in your recovery!
(Obviously because of the open commenting system here, there’s no way to know for certain (well, not 100% anyway) that this comment comes from Matt, but, for the purposes of this thread, I’ll say what-the-heck, sure, it’s Matt.)
Holy smokes that is sweet, if it is the real Matt Garza!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, kind of interesting it comes out that he is able to continue throwing after he comes on here with that post. Call me gullable, but I think….. just maybe…..
I love u ^
Brett,
Like they say… It’s better to be pissed off, than to be pissed on.
Well, Ace, after this long, drawn-out, horrible saga, it’s good to know that the only Cubs payer that still hates you is Fernando Perez.
No, no – we patched that up, too. We were going to have a beer, but he was sent out before I made it to Chicago …
I wonder how we would feel if everyone was always getting in our business. I think occasionaly I might get pissed off. The problem with social media is everyone retweets and reruns crap even if they dont have the facts to back it up .I am thankful to work for a newspaper that doesnt promote that crap.
Brett, you were sucking up hard this article man. Were you hoping Garza would read it and fall in love with you all over again. Breathe, you guys do a great job keeping us up to date and never seem to present your opinion as fact or give us blateny wrong info which is more than I can say for many (see Marmol/Haren deal). Keep it up brother.
Since we now know that Garza trolls Bleacher Nation, I would like to take this opportunity to ask if you (Garza) would please stop it already with the shaving cream pies in the face, please!!! Very old and played out. Thanks.
Now that a relationship has developed you have to ask yourself do I spit or swallow?
oh my.
If you start slobbering all over Mel Rojas or Todd Hundley, I’m done with this site.
Now that Garza is your BFF, ask him to inquire just how damaged goods (or not) Liriano and Santana are at this point. With Scott Baker now here, the Cubs could “put the band back together” with ex-Twins starters.
spit or swallow comeon really, is that nescessary cubzforlife.
“Matt Garza was given the go-ahead to resume his normal offseason routine in preparation for Spring Training after getting a clean scan on his right elbow, the team announced Thursday.”
http://muskat.mlblogs.com/2012/11/15/1115-garza-gets-go-ahead/
Sounds positive…despite what Brett’s false reporting says.
[...] today the Cubs announced that Matt Garza’s recent elbow scan (the one that set off last night/this morning’s kerfuffle) turned up clean. That’s very good [...]
Brett bot you and Matt are awesome! Better yet, the cat’s pajamas!
Matt, are you really Sergio Romo…or is he you?
Swell!!!!
Great Publicity from Garza now Brett (whether it’s good or bad)!
All his followers will see @BleacherNation. Nice.
Why am I imagining Brett screaming like a little girl when he got Garza’s reply?
[...] Garza turns 29 today, and, since we’re friends now, I can wish Matt a happy [...]