Kirk Gibson has had enough of the tomfoolery in the Dbacks’ clubhouse, particularly when it comes to cell phones:
Gibson probably would prefer to keep all cellphones out of the clubhouse. Players can use them up to a certain point in the day, as long as they get their work done.
“You’re talking to somebody in the clubhouse, your phone rings and you go to get it, I think it’s rude, Number 1, OK?” Gibson said. “I just don’t like it. I’m from an era where we had no phones to begin with. It just gets to be too much.
I guess Gibson would be totally old school whenever he managed, but he was playing as late as 1995, so this “back in my day” stuff is kind of rich coming from him.
Still, he’s serious about the cell phones thing. When I was at Dbacks camp last Thursday, the Arizona beat writers were talking about how nuts Gibson is about them. But he does seem to have a bit of a sense of humor about it. Before his little press conference, as a joke, a couple of the beat guys collected everyone’s cell phone and put them up on the podium where Gibson was going to speak so they were all right up in his face.
I thought that when Gibson saw them he’d freak. And I was worried about it because my phone was on that pile. I was half-convinced that Gibson would keep it until the end of the semester as a lesson to me. But he didn’t freak. He may have seethed a bit — I think Gibson is a big seether — but he didn’t freak.
