We just came from spring training in Arizona and the other players were real cool, but not Vlad. He came across stuck up and didn't stop for the kids, or much of anybody for that matter. What's up with that?
2007-03-12 16:38:10 · 11 answers · asked by MO 2 in Sports ➔ Baseball
My son has had some good luck the past 2 years with K-Rod, Escobar, Shileds, Cabrera, ect....so I even respect them more because they give back to their fans. He ran into Chone Figgins coming out of a pizza joint in Anaheim Hills last summer, and Chone was so polite. Once Figgins realized the kids were all excited about spotting him out in the community, he approached the kids and introduced himself to them, shook their hands and asked the kids their names.
2007-03-12 18:46:09 · update #1
Dr J. : You did come across as a jerk. By the way, as far as working for free.....yeah, I do it all the time. As a teacher, my day does not start when the kids get there or end when they leave.
2007-03-13 12:05:48 · update #2
Well, someone answered this questions saying that he doen's signs autographs because he's from antoher country. But I'll tell you something, I'm from this other country, and if you like baseball, you'll love this other country, because this is the biggest producer of baseball (good and talented) players of the world proportionally talking (US has a 300 MM population, Dom Rep the other country as you say has almost a 9 MM population only), so that's to demonstrate that your answer is full of racism to this beautiful land.
To help the other fan, Vladimir is someone who plays baseball for love of the game and who gave it all to help his poor family from his birth town Nizao near Bani. He poorly knew how to read when he got to the majors. The first night as a professional player back in Montreal he didn't have a descent place to stay, so Pedro took him and gave him that same night dominican food, because he doesn't even know how to speak english. He's a very humble man, and as I know him if he didn't sign autographs for sure he had some kind of stress or a personal probem, or under too much work pressure, because he loves his fans and loves the sports.
He has taken tons of money to help specially kids with primarly needs here in DR, and is very human. Maybe some other day you'll see him and ask him that, and he'll say sorry to you, I'm sure he would do it...
2007-03-13 02:08:57 · answer #1 · answered by FG 82 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Having over 20 years in autograph collecting...specializing in sports, I can tell you that Vlad has changed ALOT over the years. Vlad, even up until the 2006 season, was a very good signer. Believe it or not, Vlad is a better signer during the season than at ST. He gets into a work ethic mode at this time during the year that doesn't allow much talk. Plus, you may have picked a bad day because a friend of mine who lives in AZ said that Vlad was gracious after one of the games. Who knows...maybe he is ready to leave???
2007-03-12 23:46:02 · answer #2 · answered by korkon2004 1 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Many years ago I took my little league team to the Vet in Philadelphia for a home run derby competition. The kids were all dressed up in the uniforms and allowed to sit in the Phillies dugout. During the contest Pete Rose came out of the locker room and sat down in the dug out among the kids. I was running an old 8mm home movie camera at the time and got it all on film. Rose was the biggest jerk I ever saw. He completely ignored the kids. Acted like they weren't there. The kids tried to talk with him but he never looked at the them and never answered them. After about 5 minutes he just got up and went back into the locker room. To this day I'll never understand why he did it. It was like he just wanted every kid there to see him . (Look at me!! I'm Pete Rose!!)
People talk about super assholes in baseball, well as far as I'm concerned you can put Pete Rose at the top of the list.
2007-03-13 07:29:34 · answer #3 · answered by Yankee Dude 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I heard Bo Jackson talking about how so many memorabilia dealers kept sending kids up to get his autograph that he just stopped signing them. He argued that he was only enabling the dealers in exploiting the kids.
That being said, Bo Jackson had the reputation of being a pretty good guy and friendly to fans. I don't know about Vlad.
2007-03-12 23:48:25 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You pay money to see Vlad play baseball, not to sign autographs. I don't want to come across as a jerk, but it is not their job to sign autographs. What happens when they do, and they want to leave. Do they have to stay there for 3 hours and sign every single one? All it takes is the one guy to not get one, and then he starts talking about what a jerk this guy is.
And they get paid to sign. This does not bother me because I am not into getting autographs at all (what does it prove?). So why would they do something for free that they could get paid for. Put yourself in the same boat. If you could get paid for something, would you do it for free?
2007-03-13 09:29:31 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
I think some players sign contracts with those memorbillia companies or card companies and those contracts sometimes limit them to signing autographs. The less autographs they sign the more value the autograph is.
2007-03-13 05:41:10 · answer #6 · answered by c-rad 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
alot of the really popular players dont sighn autographs it pisses me off i guess they think since there so popular that they'll have everyone in the ball park wanting there autographs who knows some people just do that. but either way enjoy yourself at spring training
2007-03-13 01:21:09 · answer #7 · answered by Evanston Outlaws 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
well thats how he is and sometimes some baseball players are like that sadly
2007-03-12 23:44:59 · answer #8 · answered by Janet ♥(YFFL) 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Maybe he can't read or write. All he knows how to do is play ball.
2007-03-13 04:31:58 · answer #9 · answered by skisram 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
He has trouble writing
2007-03-13 01:56:03 · answer #10 · answered by jgmakeover 1 · 0⤊ 2⤋