Favorite John Russell Quotes: Aki

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As the season winds down and the heat on John Russell turns up, Team RumBunter headed in various directions for Labor Day.  But we are bringing you a new feature.

Favorite John Russell Quotes. 

For the very first favorite John Russell quote,  we ask that you hop aboard the time machine

and punch in January 31 2010.  In an article that Dejan did regarding the Pirates defense, Russell was talking about the Pirates defense coming into the 2010 season.  Dejan mentioned the defense had nowhere to go but down.  Sure that wasn’t a big revelation as the team finished number one last season, but it is relevant to all of us now as we watch the circus show known as Pirates defense.

Russell was giving a run down of the Pirates defenders when a little nugget came out that points another finger at who could accept some blame on the Aki Iwamura disaster this season.

Sure there is plenty of blame to go around as reports of Aki being a reformed smoker surfaced in the offseason.  Also there was mention that the Pirates didn’t give Iwamura  a physical. So, as you know many fingers could be pointed regarding the Iwamura signing, but I couldn’t seem to find any that mentioned this one from John Russell:

"“I don’t see why we can’t be good again defensively,” he said. “From what I’ve seen of Cedeno … with all due respect to Jack — and he was one of the best shortstops in the game — for a while there, Cedeno made Pittsburghers forget about Jack.“And Iwamura’s reputation precedes him. I remember Eric Hinske raving to us about him last year.”"

Who said we couldn’t work Aki Iwamura and Eric Hinske into a post?  Hinske was a teammate with Iwamura in 2008 during their World Series run by the  Tampa Bay Rays.

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