Clint Fined By MLS

I'd consider that fine quite lenient. I know a 1 game suspension was talked about as well. I wonder if there was any footage of the incident by the media folk that were in the area...

 

So, that's now $ 269,500.00 for the season in salary, or $ 29,944.00 per goal.

Great.

 

is that a fine or an advertisement?

 

Looks like Mathis's fine paid for the advertisement

 

interesing there's more detail about the playoff format/TV than the reason for Clint's fine

 

I seem to remember one Metrostar years ago who was making league minimum, and was fined we felt unjustly.

We talked about chipping in to pay his fine. Anyone remember that?

 

What is that I hear?

 

I do remember that, vaguely. Though, if you think I'm moving the moths out of my wallet to collect $ 500 for guy who makes $ 300k and verbally went after a fan, you're nuts.

At the New England game last year, after our amazing stretch run collapse that sent us crashing into 9th place, Steve Jolley walked 40 yards across the field to shake our hands and apologize for the team folding, and he spent 5 minutes talking to the guys in the front, thanking us for showing up and supporting the team. Every other player was heading to the locker room just begging to get off the field, and he came over to thank us. That was one of the coolest thing I've ever seen a player do at a game for fans. It sounds corny, but that was a classy move on his part and it meant a lot. Jolley will never have Mathis' skills, but I submit that Mathis will never have Jolley's heart. It's easy to bask in the glow of our adoration when riding high, but true class shows up when you are at your worst. Mathis' display on Saturday, unwarranted as the fan attack on him may have been, was the antithesis of what Jolley did. He had a choice to go out like a man or to go out like a chump, and for some reason he chose chump.

 

Jamison,

You are comparing apples and oranges. Who was screaming insults at Jolley last year? Clint has always been rather considerate with Metrofans. Why did he erupt Saturday? Hmmm....maybe because he was furious at the loss? Someone as talented as he is, as competitive as he is, doesn't need his home supporters kicking him when he is down. Talk about insult piled on insult. Then you mock his salary? Not that I'm saying anyone should chip in for his fine, not at all, but at $300,000 Mathis doesn't fit into the Alan Houston category of overpaid letdowns who hurt their team as much in salary cap as they do in poor performance. So don't paint him with a similar brush. Hell, Clint is underpaid, due to the MLS monopoly that both exploits its talent and prevents this town from having the side it deserves. Lucky for good ol' Cleetus, it looks like he'll be making a lot more and elsewhere very soon. The Euroside that snatches him up will get a bargain. And we'll still be stuck with the idiots that run this franchise.

 

If someone like John Wolyniec pulled the same crap, he would have been suspended for at least one game.

A petty fine for a guy who ran after hecklers, but crawled into a fetal position when Joey Franchino was pounding on him.

 

You realize you sound like a Revs fan, right? Not even one of their smart ones, but one of the dopey, retarded, middle-school Rev fans. I'd love to know what the precedent is for suspending someone for yelling at a fan. Even the speculation BEFORE the fine said that a suspension could happen to send a message. If he was suspended, it would be ONLY because he is Clint Mathis.

Oh, and come down to MD sometime to play a game of soccer. I'll arrange for a psycho-looking guy (there seem to be alot of them down here I've been noticing) to kick you all game, then tackle you from behind and start swinging. I just can't wait to see your reaction. I'm guessing it would be at least similar to Mathis'.

 

Well, what precedent did we have for someone getting suspended for 2 games for an elbow? Didn't stop MLS for suspending Wolyniec for the Crew game did it?

If Mathis had done it, it would have been only a fine or worst case scenario a one game suspension.

 

Just wanted to inject a little bit of irony into a discussion about Mathis fine -

The reason states "conduct unbecoming a professional athlete".

In today's world with all that's going on isn't that sort of an oxymoron. I read the thing above about Jolley and it's great that some guys still care, but with all the reports of gang rapes, killings and drug use by pro athletes - you wonder what proper conduct for an athlete really is.

All in all I'm really disappointed to here this. Clint is great entertainment when he's playing and a couple of years ago I was really jealous of the Metros for getting him, then last year I sort of felt sorry for him that he was hurt so much and couldn't play, now I'm sorry for the Metros fans for having him chew up such a chunk of salary cap.

 

Mike Petke's fine for revealing the "Crime of the Century" T shirt beneath his jersey was a true galvanizing moment in Metrostars history!

Jamison's note of Jolly's spirit is right on.

Would like to see more Metro spirit like that come off the field.

 

Right. Because Mathis is the league's baby and would never EVER get suspended. Like last season. There have been suspensions for on-field misconduct after the fact numerous times this season alone. That is a totally different situation.

 

I just don't see any European side throwing money at a guy that, by all recent showings is washed-up, on the slight chance that he manages to get his sh_t together.

He played himself out of those contracts.

 

It could be argued that Clint Mathis has been exactly what you describe Houston as - an overpaid letdown who hurt his team as much in salary cap as in poor performance. Maybe he doesn't make so much compared to people in other sports, but in the world of MLS, he's paid significantly more than most of the league and more is expected of him.

 

And Jamison, you're absolutely right about Jolley. It is attitudes and actions like his that make people want to support this team and league, and attitudes like Mathis' that turn them off.

 

I understand your point, but I didn't say they were identical incidents, just opposites of behavior towards fans. I called one incident the antithesis of the other. I think both Clint last week and Jolley last year were feeling upset, frustrated and depressed at losing. Jolley turned it into a positive by thinking about others, Clint into a negative by thinking about himself. Apples and applesauce, maybe. I just don't see why Clint felt he had to go after a fan.

I will agree that he has always been good to metrofans in the past, but I will also submit that metro fans have been pretty good to him. When he came back last year, grew out the fu man chu and was very bad, we largely left him out of it (internet ramblings of a few nuts aside). Some guys always bash him and some always support him, but we were largely behind him, and still largely are. In the stadium, we were cheering for Metro all night Saturday, except for a few fans who wanted to let the team have it. Since coming back from Korea, Mathis has been cut a fair amount of slack over the various injuries he's suffered, and rightly so as he earned it by being our best offensive player from 2000-2002.

I like the guy, always have, but he's been average the last year and a half. No doubting it, he's been average. Average in a league where you are making $300k and the guy next to you is making $ 50k isn't cutting it. I'm not ridiculing his salary, but rather pointing out that with the cap as tight as it is in this league, he has to produce. Magee, Gaven and Woly together still make around than $100k. You want to talk about people being underpaid and exploited, I'll agree with you, but you need to point the "poverty" finger away from the guy driving the brand new Porsche 911.

I don't agree with the fan that verbally abused him, and I did not do the same, nor would I. I think we are as frustrated with him as he is with himself, and we are taking out some general team frustration out on him as he is the offensive leader on a team that can't score. In 2000 when he was scoring 2 goals in a 2-1 game and we were all calling him god, we went over the top too; this is the pendulum swinging the other way. I don't think it is too much to ask to handle both with dignity and professionalism.

Yes, I understand that he doesn't need anyone booing him, but every professional athlete puts up with that (as Serg mentioned). Soccer players are no exception. Giambi gets booed, Ewing got booed. If Clemens goes out and pitches 1 and a 3rd innings giving up 6 runs to the Red Sox in a playoff game, he's going to hear about it. I'm not suggesting that Mathis should stoically put up with horrendous abuse, he's not Jackie Robinson, but his actions Saturday were not those of a professional and the abuse he got was pretty light. Whatever his salary, he shouldn't act that way. One guy lets him have it and he goes after him? If it had been a whole stadium booing they way other pros have it, then what? Jack McDowell flipped Yankee fans the finger once for getting booed, but he stayed in the dugout. If Mathis wants to lose respect for us and think we are jerks because of one fan on one night, okay, but he can do that from the lockeroom without pulling a Pedro Martinez and going after a loudmouth geriatric.

Oddest part about this story was if he goes up the other stairs, there were people cheering for Metro, and no one even mentions this. I know that someone from 140 ran over and threw a bottle, maybe that set him off. Who knows.

It's been my point in other threads that we have to move on. Cheer for the shirt, put his last week and his last season behind us and go up to Foxboro on Sunday and scream for the team. I'll be there cheering Metro no matter what he or the team does, and nothing else really matters.

Mathis is Mathis, water under the bridge, let's move on.

(And I don't think I was mocking his salary. Hey, I'd take 300k a year. Another poster brought up the time when we talked about starting a collection for a player's fine (in that case, a player showed a shirt that was pro-metro and got fined). My point was that we should not be taking up such collections for a player who tried to attack a fan, a decidely anti-metro event. That was it.)


****off topic

Yes, Houston and his 100 million are a joke on a dollar for performance scale, but soccer and basketball are very different sports on revenue numbers. And I didn't paint them with the same brush- you mentioned Houston, not me. Houston is a good player, but got way overpaid by a stupid organization. In his case, I don't think he's a letdown per se because he is doing now what he was doing then, just that the management is comepletely retarded (he put up 35 the other night). If they over-pay him I can't fault him for cashing checks, none of us would take less money than they offered. But he signed that in a league where there was no cap (back then) on player salaries. The Knicks wanted to Larry Bird exemption themselves 40 million over a 45 million cap, that's on them. To me, the knicks paid 100 million for a 50 million dollar player, they overestimated his value. Metro paid 300k and got a 300k player playing like a 100k player. They paid him what he was worth, and he underperformed. Maybe that's a hairsplit, but that's how I see it.

Plus, Houston, booed as he gets, never went after anyone.
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I've obtained the Cliff Notes version of War and Peace:

Seems we have a difference of opinion here:

"I think it was overplayed quite frankly," said Metros coach Bob Bradley of the incident. "I kept reading about how he went into the stands, which is not true. I feel bad for him with the way this was reported."

"There's a huge difference between going into the stands, and going up the steps and having a verbal exchange with someone who threw beer on you."

There have been two instances of things being thrown at a Metro game in recent memory.

The first was bottles and general debris thrown at Diallo after he was ejected while playing against the Metro.

The other was this past Saturday.

 

1. Saying "tried to attack" was strong, I apologize. But he went up the stairs (entirely out of the way) to yell at a guy; aka "went after" him. I wasn't using "went after" to parallel the Romario incident, but I was told he was held back and taken down the stairs by Metro players.

I'm basing my opinion of the event on the testimony of someone who was there and saw it. I was there, but didn't see it. You were....?

2. MLS found his actions enough to fine him. Can you give us a list of other Metros in 8 years of home games fined by the league for conduct un-becoming due to what we will euphemistically call "excessive fan interaction"?

3. Incidents where Allan Houston was fined by the NBA for fan interaction?

Cheers, Tolstoy.