Scooba is correct.
It's not all of them, though.
The fact of the matter is this. We are not going to have a chance to move forward as a program until we totally get rid of Polk's players. I know some people will say that I'm making excuses here, but it's not just their lack of talent that's the problem. It's their attitude. You don't have to be a five tool player to have some fire in your belly and do what it takes to win. Ask Pete Rose.
People have to remember this when they are watching or talking about a lot of the players on this team:
1. Most of these players were recruited with the promise that they were not going to get yelled at no matter what. They were promised "a good baseball experience".
2. Many of them were promised that they would be starters without competition or having to earn it.
3. Many of them loved Polk, and Raffo was one of Polk's primary reruiters. Raffo actually recruited most of players.
Now, what we did is bring in John Cohen who:
1. Cusses and yells and wants to win.
2. Is all about competition every year and in the season. Which makes Sam Frost even more puzzling.
3. Probably would not have recruited 90% of Polk's boys in the first place.
The players wanted Raffo. Now, I think Raffo has done a great job at Arkansas State, but I seriously doubt that he would be doing as well as even Cohen is doing now. The reason I say that is because guess who would still be around if we had hired Raffo? Yep. Ron Polk. The guy was going to build a replica of his office in the Palmeiro Center next to Raffo's. Tommy would have been another "yes" man with a title, all the while MSU baseball continues to go down the toilet. I also believe that Russ McNickle would still be around if Raffo was the coach right now. Recruiting would be no better than what we were doing, and people would eventually lose interest all together. Except for the dumbasses who've "been going to the games for 40 years" that haven't seen a baseball game at any other place or level besides MSU and maybe, maybe their local high school. What the Polk croonies don't realize is that we did Raffo a huge favor by forcing him to get the hell away from Polk and McNickle. I wish Raffo well, and hope I get a chance to watch his team play sometime in the future.
That said, what we were trying to as little as two years ago would be like having a rec league all-star team and trying to play a bunch of select teams in a 12 team league. SEC baseball from top to bottom is about as good as SEC football. Even the worst programs are pretty good. IF we wanted to compete in the SEC and build on our tradition, we had to join the game. If we did not, and we were more concerned about pleasing certain people in the stands, we could go in that direction as well, which was the same one that we were on two years ago. LT made a decision nine years ago to please people. Byrne made a decision to compete.
And honestly, Cohen has had to put up with a LOT of **** for really no good reason. He has been accused of playing favorites by some of the Polk croonies, and yet, most of our lineup is Polk players. He gets bitched at for cussing IN THE DUGOUT where it is really no ones business what goes on in there. Cohen has done a LOT of stuff to accomodate Polk's boys- like allow Jet Butler to not play second base, and he yelled at them less this fall and spring. They need to remember that Cohen could have very easily cut all of their asses like Manieri did at LSU a few years back. I think the reason he didn't is out of respect for Polk.
Cohen is the type of coach that we need right now. He is a good recruiter- and the fruits of that will really show in a couple of years, he wants to win at MSU worse than anything, and wants to take the baseball program to that next level. We have not had that for years.
IF we fired Cohen or whatever, whoever the next coach is better send him a thank-you note for leaving him some darn good players.
Back to Raffo, I think most of the players feel like he "didn't get a fair shot" to be the coach at MSU. Ironically, they are to blame in part because a big reason why Raffo wasn't hired was BECAUSE of his recruiting- whether Polk was restricting him or not, and Polk was, and the fact that many of these players DIDN'T PERFORM when he was the coach. Polk, who threw a ***** fit about it, is also in part to blame for not letting Raffo do more things that he wanted to do and for not allowing him to go get some HC experience like Polk did with McMahon. On top of all this, you have Polk telling many of the players on our team to NOT PLAY for Cohen.
Anyone that watches our team, it is VERY apparent that the problem is the players.
