It’s About Time to Give Up on Figuring Out Weaver

I just don’t get some athletes, beginning with “The Flake.”

You might know him as Jeff Weaver, but you don’t have to spend time with this droopy, glum-faced Dodger pitcher who walks around as if he’s miserable.

And until Wednesday, I hadn’t even spoken to him this season.

As you’ve already been told, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. Well, The Flake didn’t make it in New York. The folks there booed him with gusto, and it was a foregone conclusion the Yankees had to get him out of town.

So he comes to Los Angeles, arrives with that depressing aura about him, but goes 13-13 for a team that won 93 games, including the National League West title. Smiles all around. Yo, Jeff, smile.

This year he starts well, then gets rocked and now the rollercoaster ride continues. A week ago he’s pitching great, the Micro Manager wants to give him the chance to take a bow with a dominating pitching performance over the Braves, but with two strikes and two out, The Flake gives up a grand slam.

Later he suggests to reporters he was tired, but didn’t tell anyone he was tired and said he wouldn’t have told anyone he was tired if asked, but implies it’s Jim Tracy’s fault for not pulling him because he was obviously tired.

He’s apparently not much on accountability, and doesn’t think it’s his fault that someone has hit a grand slam -- the ball landing somewhere in Pasadena. You want to turn a clubhouse against you, start pointing the finger at everyone but yourself.

Fast forward to Wednesday. The Flake is sailing along, his teammates giving him a 2-1 lead an inning earlier, and he falls apart. The big inning begins with Paul Lo Duca coming to the plate, probably humming “New York, New York” just loud enough so The Flake can hear him. He gets a hit.

The Flake flips out, gives up three home runs, at one point endangering the lives of the kids who are on a field trip in the left-field pavilion as they try to dodge the rockets off the bats of the Marlins. It’s never too early to learn how to dodge trouble in the pavilion, especially if the Dodgers bring back $2 Tuesdays.

Tracy finally comes to the mound, Weaver turns to him and holds both of his arms out wide in frustration/exasperation/defiance? Is he challenging his manager for taking him out? Mocking him for not arriving sooner?

If he’s still in New York, this picture is plastered across the back page of the New York Post with some catchy headline like: “I Give Up.”

The game ends, the Dodgers losing 8-3, and the media goes to the Micro Manager’s office. As you know by now, when Tracy starts talking, it can be the better part of the day before he puts a period on the end of a sentence or takes a breath.

He says Weaver was “just frustrated” when he held out his arms, which really doesn’t answer the question if The Flake was challenging or mocking him, but ask yourself this: Would you have asked the question again, knowing you’d have to sit through another marathon answer from Tracy?

The media leaves Tracy and moves to Weaver’s locker. It’s empty. You can say the same thing sometimes when he’s there.

A Dodger employee is standing nearby passing out Weaver quotes. Weaver has apparently spoken to a few radio and TV reporters, who knew better than to try and get a sound bite from Tracy.

Most of the reporters are thrilled to have Weaver quotes without having to talk to him. But there’s no way of knowing if the Dodger employee has sanitized the remarks to protect the Dodgers and Weaver from the wrong thing being said.

I listen to the quotes, they seem to make sense, which doesn’t sound like Weaver.

(Our reporter later telephones Weaver to chat with him rather than accept the quotes from a team publicist. I’d call Weaver, too, but he probably has Caller I.D.)

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A DODGER publicist says Weaver has spoken and will not be speaking again. Sometimes I wonder if life is worth living.

Weaver will make more than $9 million to pitch this year for the Dodgers, working once every five days, and anything beyond that is asking too much.

Don’t you want to know why he chose to throw away Wednesday’s game and then make some kind of weird gesture toward Tracy? The team’s publicist refuses to ask Weaver to speak to reporters who were stuck with Tracy, so I go to Weaver.

“I have some questions,” I say, and he doesn’t lose stride walking by, saying, “I already answered them all.”

Weaver then blows off a TV request from FSN at the other end of the clubhouse, and it wasn’t even Jack Haley. If anyone in this town is going to make an athlete look good, it’s going to be some back-slapper from FSN.

The Flake keeps walking right into the team’s lunch room, off limits to the media, and sits before a TV. I look at the clock. Dr. Phil is coming on. A TV show made for The Flake.

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HERE IS what doesn’t make sense. The Dodger fans are now booing him just like the Yankee fans. It should send a shiver though Weaver, criticized in New York for looking depressed all the time, and, here we go again.

Mr. Lisa has been more of a stand-up guy after losses than Weaver, and while he certainly has more experience, what’s so demanding about answering questions over and over again after less than three hours of work and four days off before the next assignment?

The Flake ought to be standing in front of his locker, passing out goodies and thanking everyone for giving him the chance he never got in New York. He ought to be signing autographs every day -- with a smile.

The Dodger publicity specialists should be telling him the same thing, reminding him that a player who makes $9 million a year can TiVo Dr. Phil.

T.J. Simers can be reached at

[email protected]. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.