ERIK BEDARD: YOU SAW IT, WRITE IT

Erik Bedard, the Orioles pitcher from Eastern Ontario farming country, is no early-season frontrunner for the Baltimore baseball writers' Mr. Congeniality Award.

Oriole Post had this first: At least two writers (here's one, and here's another) who cover the Orioles were unimpressed with the Navan, Ont., native's ongoing reticence with the media. What's funny is that the cultural/language issue isn't even on these blinkered beat guys' radar screens. Bedard is, after all, small-town Franco-Ontarian. So when some squirrelly American sportswriter snaps at him, however good-naturedly, "Come on, Erik, it won't take you long to give us three one-word answers," why should they be surprised that he would put walls up and not feel like talking?

By his own admission, Bedard spoke "horrible English" until he went to the States to play college baseball almost a decade ago. He's had a lot of time to get used to dealing with English-language reporters. Still, if the writers in Baltimore don't project any consideration for the fact that he's dealing with them in his second language and act like it's all about having lengthy quotes to pad out their stories, he's somewhat justified in resenting having to play their game.

Come on, Erik, it won't take you long to give us three one-word answers. Wouldn't you feel a bit used if someone said that to you?

That doesn't make Erik Bedard an arrogant jerk. It makes him a human being.

Thing is, sportswriters generally hang around longer than ballplayers. For his sake, the Orioles -- whose general manager, fellow left-hander Mike Flanagan, was known to give good quotes in his heyday -- should help break the ice forming between Bedard and the writers down there. He has enough to deal with in his career.