Somewhere within the conflicted but always colorful world of Cubs Twitter, I saw a tweet somewhere that echoed my sentiments exactly. “Less Addison Russell talking to the media, more Addison Russell getting released by the Chicago Cubs.”
Unless something drastic happens and an unexpected bombshell drops that is just not going to happen. Despite the growing number of Cubs fans who want Russell jettisoned, the Cubs remain steadfast in their decision to give him another chance, and see if he can turn his life around after a divorce marred by accusations of domestic abuse.
As for Russell himself, he did absolutely nothing to win over hearts and minds with a disastrous press conference which consisted of him mostly just responding with four or five vague, vanilla stock answers that he obviously had memorized beforehand.
We discussed the Addison Russell situation at press conference Sunday night on CLTV Sports Feed with Jarrett Payton and Andy Masur. Watch the segment below:
He gave these answers, no matter what was asked of him, and it felt like he was just a press release talking. Basically, it was like taking a big exam in school, and someone handed Addison Russell the answer key the day before.
So while he did a good job memorizing the answers, and giving them to reporters, at the end of the day he still failed this test.
He only faced a couple tough questions from the media, as most of the queries were pretty open-ended and general; while many were just plain softball. If you didn’t believe his ex-wife before Friday (and you really should have), you’ll most likely totally believe her after having watched the session.
By my count, Addison Russell used the word "accountable" or "accountability" 7 times in his 19-min presser and led off 4 responses with a robotic "Thank you for the question."
— Tony Andracki (@TonyAndracki23) February 15, 2019
If you haven’t already read Reidy’s stomach-churning, utterly disturbing blog post, which detailed years of enduring physical, emotional and psychological abuse, you really should.
Given a platform to give his account of what happened, Russell wouldn’t get into specifics of the allegations of physical and emotional abuse.
Instead he went with predictable and vague boilerplate.
“I don’t want to get into any specifics, but what I do wanna say is I am accountable for my past actions,” Russell said.
“I’m not proud of the person that I was, but I do wanna own this issue and take responsibility for the hurt and the pain that I’ve caused Melisa. And for that I am sorry.”
Remember this was the first time he has spoken to the media since October, and this was his first chance to present himself after being hit with the suspension from Major League Baseball. He initially denied the allegations that he abused his ex-wife, so this was an opportunity for him to put his best public face forward.
And what he brought to the table, was, whatever the hell this is….
https://twitter.com/Ring_Sheryl/status/1096563931982774272
Russell was later pressed on specifics and asked if he no longer denied the allegations brought against him.
“I wanna own my actions. I wanna be accountable for the hurt that I put Melisa through the and pain that she went through. That’s what I wanna own.”
Enough is enough. It wasn’t a very long press conference, but it certainly felt like it was. That’s because it was so difficult to finish. It’s time for the Cubs to end this nonsense and just move on.
https://twitter.com/Darth_Stout/status/1096504436170649600
Addison Russell has had his day in the court of public opinion, and we’ve heard enough. It’s time for the Cubs to finally do what’s been long overdue.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.