The last thing the Blue Jays needed heading into a very important, four game series with the New York Yankees, is this Shea Hillenbrand situation. Most of the blame seems to be headed Hillenbrand's way after the comments he wrote on a message board. Apparently Hillenbrand, whether joking or not, wrote "Play for yourselves". Zaun who happened to see this, went to the board and wrote "and for your paychecks", then turned to Hillenbrand and said "Isn't that what you really meant to say?''. The words "this ship is sinking" were written after, presumably by Hillenbrand. This is were things began to become more hush-hush, as exactly what happen after is partially be kept under wraps or has slightly conflicting stories.

It was been reported that Hillenbrand and Gibbons have not seen eye-to-eye all season, and probably dating back to last year. Gibbons told Hillenbrand before Wednesday game, "You won't see the field as long as I'm here,". Gibbons also didn't deny that he challenged Hillenbrand to hit.

Hillenbrand shouldn't have wrote those comments, joking or not. Not everyone would find comments like that funny, especially in a team environment. Media outlets should not have been contacted during the game to leak what has happened. This should have stayed in house. Bashing the front office to members of the media, is also not a good idea. All this aside, I think some of the blame has to go to J.P and Gibbons.

J.P. should have traded Hillenbrand awhile ago, since he appeared to already know that Hillenbrand and Gibbons did not get along. When players and mangers/coaches do not get along, it can have a negative effect on a team (just look at the New York Knicks situation over the past year). Not a lot of good can come out a situation like this.

As for Gibbons, I don't think a manager should single out a player like this in front of the team. I don't believe that Gibbons had all the information on the situation to warrent confronting Hillenbrand when he did. The main thing that Gibbons did that bothers me, is the fact that he challenged Hillenbrand to punch him. No manager should do that. The rest of the team may lose a bit of respect for Gibbons as he opening challenged one of their teammates, regardless if they felt Hillenbrand deserved it.

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