Posey Posey Posey

We're considering renaming the blog to Our Bay Area Cousins, covering only the Scott Cousins-Buster Posey imbroglio.

Posey released a statement yesterday, which basically screams "I don't want to deal with any of this right now."

I appreciate the continued support of Giants fans and others as I begin the process of working my way back. But in no way do I condone threats of any kind against Scott Cousins or his family.

As I said last week, I'm not out to vilify Scott. I appreciate that he made the effort to reach out to me on the night of the play, but I was in no physical condition to talk to anyone. I have not been back with the team since that night, so I haven't even been aware of any other messages he's left for me. We all need to move on, so it isn't necessary to have a conversation with him at this point.

My only focus right now is looking forward, getting healthy and returning to catching for the Giants.

Meanwhile, legendary catcher Johnny Bench decided to give his two cents, and he says Posey, not Cousins, is to blame for Posey's injury:

When I heard about the injury, I was anxious to see how this happened. Buster put himself in such a bad position.

Bench is not really helping here (indeed, he's basically blaming the victim, which makes no one feel any better about the incident). He went on to explain that he teaches young catchers "to stay away from the plate when you don't have the ball," in order to induce a slide out of the runner. "And if you have the runner on the ground, there's less chance of any severe collision," he concluded. He also likened Posey's positioning to "a disabled car in the middle of a four-lane highway. You’re just going to get smacked." Sound advice, if delivered in a tone-deaf manner.

As for Posey, he could have been more magnanimous, but I understand he's frustrated and wants to move on. Surely someone in the Giants' media relations department will arrange a meeting between Posey and Cousins at some point so the two can shake hands and call it a day. But hopefully for now Posey's statement will put an end to the controversy.

On the other hand, at least this dustup inspired another great t-shirt from Strip Club With Stanton:

Keep up the good work, SCWS!