First of all, what a hypocrite.
Hey, I've enjoyed covering the confounding grouch for the most part, but if there's anyone upon retirement who should have heard and appreciated the words, "don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out," it's Jeff Kent.
In a perfect world, if only Vin Scully had been at the news conference and said just that, while adding, "That guy cries too much."
Come on, if Tom Hanks doesn't make it famous in a movie, Kent is probably credited for snapping at some rookie: "There's no crying in baseball."
But what do we get, some lip-biting, mustache-soaked sob sister who wants to make it defiantly clear he never liked the game of baseball, but here he stands an emotional wreck because he's leaving it.
The cold shoulder lives his entire baseball life, every other macho sentence beginning, "I don't care what anyone thinks," and so now we're supposed to care what Kent has to say?
The whole thing is out of whack, sports at its lost perspective worst, the wrong guy blubbering at the microphone and the line extending from here to New York now with folks more deserving than Kent of such attention.
Where's the spotlight and appreciative crowd for Steve Dilbeck, the Los Angeles Daily News sports columnist, who like so many others in recent weeks has been told they will no longer be paid to do what they do so well?
Kent is 40, and although he maximized his God-given talent to play baseball, the Dodgers paid him $9 million last season on top of millions already earned. Now he will oversee the golf country club and three motorcycle shops he owns until he becomes eligible for the Hall of Fame.
And he's trying not to cry.
Dilbeck, as upbeat and engaging as Kent is sour and aloof, is married, father of three, including a son requiring shots for diabetes every day, and now at age 56 looking for work in an industry hellbent on becoming extinct.
Kent controls his fate to the end, while an unseen bottom line changes the course of Dilbeck's life. But, oh, how we care about our athletes, what they are feeling and what might be next for them.
The second baseman earns $55,555 for each Dodgers game, which means two games into the year he's probably earned more than Dilbeck. And some might argue Dilbeck was more on top of his game than Kent last year.
