Updated Post
According to a report on ESPN New York, Ike Davis loudly lectured Mike Puma of the NY Post this morning regarding the article about him concealing an oblique injury, as teammates and other media watched.
“You made it look like an excuse,” Davis stated, directly addressing the article’s author. “It’s an excuse. It shouldn’t have been a story anyway. … It’s just an overblown thing.”
“Everyone has injuries and then they get hurt. So it was pointless to write an article. I sucked last year because I sucked. It’s not because I had an injury. You always have injuries. And now it just looks bad.”
Davis acknowledged he never informed GM Sandy Alderson or manager Terry Collins last year. He added that he did not feel the need to clear the air now with them.
“You can’t tell people stuff because you won’t play,” Davis said.
Reporters like Puma report what they learn all the time. Unless the conversation was off the record, Davis is fuming all because the guy did his job. Puma was going to publish his story regardless and gave Davis an opportunity to weigh in on what the source had told him. Obviously his source was accurate.
This is New York. This is the way things are. Players and reporters have a job to do.
It seems like the issue is that Ike thinks reporting about him playing in pain last season will keep him from winning the first base job this Spring. That’s not what will win or lose him the first base job.
Word of advice to Ike – Just hit the ball.
Original Post
Ike Davis concealed an oblique injury from Mets officials for most of last season because of bad timing and the fact he was struggling and didn’t want to surrender his spot in the lineup, the beleaguered first baseman told Mike Puma of the the NY Post on Sunday.
Davis told Puma that he was on the verge of getting demoted to Triple-A at the time and didn’t want team officials to think he was using the oblique as an excuse or inventing an injury.
“I thought about saying, ‘Hey, I would like to take a couple of weeks off, because I’m not feeling great,’ ” Davis said. “But then the timing was bad and it was when I was getting sent down. It would have been a great time, but it looks bad and I just can’t say that.”
Davis did not blame the injury for his poor performance at the plate saying, “It makes me look like a baby, like I’m whining about how I stunk. I was terrible, now it’s over.”
Neither general manager Sandy Alderson nor manager Terry Collins seemed aware of the situation until asked about it Sunday by The Post. “He didn’t say anything to me or he wouldn’t have played,” Collins told Puma.
“I probably should have said something earlier, but what are you going to do?” Davis said. “I wanted to play better, I didn’t want to come out. If I was hitting .380, I probably would have been like, ‘Maybe I should let this cool down so I don’t miss [extensive] time,’ but when you’re hitting .200, you can’t take weeks off.”
“I had an oblique injury for the whole season, basically,” Davis said.
Unreal… What is even more disappointing is that Davis only came clean today because another source knew about it and told Puma who then confronted Davis about it.
It’s always something. I wonder how Collins and Alderson will react to this. Surely they must be pissed…
On the other hand, maybe a healthy season will bring back the 2011 version of Ike Davis when he had a .925 OPS before he injured his ankle?
(Photo by Brad Barr, USA TODAY Sports)
