'This team is basically un-coach-able'

Column Jeff Calderone

Auteur: Jeff Calderone	Geplaatst op: 03-08-2001, 18.30

"I find it quite alarming that ADO let Pete Yarasavich go at this point of the season. Apparently, someone in Den Haag thinks they can do better with this group of guys. To me there is no doubt that ADO has the most talent on paper and it is the job of the coach to motivate and prepare his team for battle, but to fire Pete at the end of July is a joke, especially since they have NOBODY really qualified to replace him.

Sometimes when a group of players with so much talent underachieves, it is not the fault of the coach, but yet of the playing leaders on the field and the support they are supposed to show the coach. Losing is just as contagious as winning, and many great teams (like the NY Yankees) go through rough points, but isn't the final results what the people of ADO are looking for?
Nobody but Pete and I really felt like ADO was going to the Holland Series in 2000, and I went so far as to predict such a thing last year....but even through all of that we still had to have meetings all the time just to address bad attitudes toward the coaching staff, fellow teammates, and even the umpires and bestuur. Shit, some of our players even complained about having meetings!
I was never so sick of the day-in and day-out crap that went on, and to some extent I even allowed my own attitude to sink and act like an idiot at times. What I am trying to say is that this team is basically un-coach-able. The players on this team don't want to be coached....hell, there are nine coaches on the field playing at any one time. They all "Know It All...Already" I am not getting personal here, in fact I would have never played for ADO without Balentina there, plus I really like Taco Summers, Monna, Dunlop, Spiekie, Lindy and all the others. I have respect for all of them as players...but NOT as coaches. If these guys played to half their potential, nobody in Europe would stand a chance.

The players on ADO's team are certainly talented, and if they make the playoffs NOBODY wants to play them in the first round, especially Neptunus, but I am not sure that they are going to the playoffs...maybe I am wrong....I hope so, because that would be a huge disappointment for the whole NL honkbal world. Who doesn't want to be entertained by players fighting with each other, the public, the umpires, and the other teams?!
I am not saying that Pete is Joe Torre or Yogi Berra, but he did take the team to the finals last season, he did win 18 in a row last season, he did find Monna and Summers. He did have alot to do with certain players coming to The Hague, and if it were not for injuries to his pitching, he'd probably still have a job. ...and for what? To be fired for being swept by a team (Expos) that did NOT make the playoffs but continually kicked our asses last season, and they just seems to play super against ADO.
If you make the playoffs this season the chances are you will get a Europacup next season...that's almost for sure. Play the Expos in the playoffs and you win for sure because ADO plays only when it really HAS to. But what now? If ADO misses the playoffs, it's their own fault...not Pete's. If they make it, they better win it all, because that is the only thing good enough to justify firing someone that has put in WAY too much time for this club.
I wish Pete and ADO the best."

Jeff Calderone
(03-08-2001)

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