Utley among baseball's meanest, players say
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Utley among baseball's meanest, players say
Daily News staff
Chase Utley as mean?
That's what many of his fellow major leaguers say in this week's Sports Illustrated players' poll.
Utley finished second with 13 percent of the vote when 215 players were asked who is the meanest player in baseball.
White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski was the runaway winner with 29 percent of the vote.
Milton Bradley (11 percent), Carlos Zambrano (five percent) and former Phillies pitcher Vicente Padilla (four percent) rounded out the top 5.
Hard to imagine this goes back to his declaration about the World F. Champions in 2008. Our guess is this might be the baseball definition of "dirtiest" or it might be a reflection of Utley's hard-nosed style.
What do you think? Surprised at what other players think of Utley?
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surprised isn't the word...i am flabbergasted!!! Over the years I have only seen Utley lose his temper once and that was after Jonathan Sanchez instigated a fight after hitting Utley with a pitch. Although, 13% is pretty overwhelming when you compare it to the other hot-headed on the list so there must be something to this. Regardless of this stat I want my kids to play EXACTLY like Mr. Utley and I will be a proud father.— Anything_Philly_is4me- Typical SI inanity. How did they define "mean"? Which players voted? How does he get so many votes for the ALL-Star team?— supernova
- I saw a discussion on Daily News Live concerning this idiotic article....Utley is a player,leader, and winner, while others on this list like Milton Bradley and Carlos Zambrano are or were embarrassments to their franchises...To boot Utley is a class act in his charity association with his wife for the dogs and the PSPCA...SI swallows.— bearsfriend
- Other teams don't like that Utley leans into pitches. And he is excellent at breaking up double plays. I would chalk it up to nothing more than that.— Tartan69
- I'd like to who Philadelphia players deem to be the meanest, grubbiest, low-down dirtiest sports writers.— stoky
Maybe they didn't like him telling NYC "F&^# You" when he was booed at the All Star game a few years ago.- who cares— furio
Putting Utley in the same category with Bradley and Big Z is ridiculous. If you stretch the definition of "mean" far enough you can probably get Mother Teresa in under it. I mean, she was a hard little nut, too. Utley plays tough but he plays under control. Don't liken him to the chronic head cases who are also on this list.- Yeah, he seems like a real DICK, LOL!— makrom
- And there isn't a team out there that wouldn't take him!— zampmj
- And there isn't a team out there that wouldn't take him!— zampmj
- Hard to believe. When he hits a homer he puts his head down and jogs around the bases without posing. Chase plays 2nd and is a target. With players like Zambrano, Brewers Rodriguez, (he just made a comment not happy as setup man). I guess he would rather be in New York and going home in 2 weeks.— Don w
- Utley plays hard. The players now don't want to slide into 2nd base hard; want to avoid contact and be nice to other teams. Bob Gibson would send fifty percent of modern players into retirement early. When players crowd the plate the modern pitcher doesn't know what to do, but pitch on the outer part of the plate.— tulsaphil
- I would like to take a poll of the stupidest poll that people pose. I think we would find a list longer than we could imagine of silky, inane, and insane poll questions. I would put the meanest player in baseball on the list for sure...— envirojoe55
