Jayson Werth, You Have Broken My Heart

Dear Jayson:

So I guess this makes it official. You’re gone, and gone for good. Any dreams I had of a Cliff Lee-like comeback—your arms and ours flung wide, both proclaiming that we were wrong, that we belong together—well, those dreams are dead, Jayson. They derailed the minute you were quoted in the Washington Post saying you hated the Phillies. Which—and you know this—is just like saying you hate us.

Sniff.

All I can say is this, Jayson: I vouched for you time and again. I defended the beard. Hell, I loved the beard. You played right field. I played right field! You weren’t grumpy, you were just stoic. That time you lost your cool and screamed at that guy? You were just in the heat of the moment. We’ve all been there. You left us for the Nationals? Well, a man’s gotta do what man’s gotta do (for millions and millions of dollars). Your at-bats bought you all sorts of forgiveness from me. I think, in the heat of the 2009 season, they even pushed you past Shane and Jimmy as my favorite Phillie that year. You were Dylan McKay to those guys’ Brandon Walsh—smoldering, moody, confident enough to steal home in the seventh in that 2009 game against the Dodgers. Heady stuff, that.

In his column on Monday, the Inky’s John Gonzalez compared your behavior to that of a jilted lover’s, lashing out from hurt and shock that the Phils didn’t stop the world to keep you. I think he’s right—what we’re seeing is just a Phillie scorned. It would seem that all is not fair in love and baseball—and now you’ve gone and done something no amount of talent or at-bats will ever erase: Bad-mouth the team that made you great, that gave you a World Championship title, that gave you the love of a city whose love ain’t so easy to come by. You’ve disrespected our relationship, and what it meant to you and to your career. And to us.

Love may be blind, Jayson, but it’s not dumb.

You suck.

Go Phils.

PS. Jimmy and Shane, I’ll never stray again.