Kids: Do not try and hurt another player on purpose
In no way did I want this to be my first post here. I envisioned something more epic and creative, but I cannot let this stand. While I do not believe that sports figures have to be role models, and I believe parents should parent their own children, the PSA in the title is just good information. Bernie Miklasz, a writer for St. Louis Today.com (St. Louis Dispatch) wrote a simply awful piece of garbage yesterday. I am a baseball purist in just about every sense of the word. I think batters should get beaned if they crowd the plate. I believe if you are man enough to deliver that beaning you should be man enough to fight over it. I believe a second baseman in the base path with the ball is fair game. I even believe that a catcher blocking the plate should get railroaded. I do not, however, subscribe to the idea that sliding into a guy who is looking away and gave you the plate should in any way be okay. I also believe that Tony LaRussa is evil, but that’s a topic for another conversation later. What Pujols did was wrong, he apologized for it, and Brandon Backe called him on it. It was over in my book. But for a columnist to say it was okay, and to even encourage more of it? That’s unthinkable. You do not hit a man from behind, and you do not hit a man trying to stop you from getting nailed with a ball while you are sliding into home on a plate that was in no way blocked.
I was at the game and in the bang bang situation I didn’t think Pujols did much wrong, but this picture says it all:
Knee out, elbow out, looking right at his legs. Albert knew what he was doing. I don’t believe he intended to hurt Towles, but he certainly meant to take him out. Either way, being tough is one thing, being dirty is another. I’m giving Pujols the benefit of the doubt, his teammate told him to slide, and there is only one reason to slide and that is if a play at the plate is imminent. For me, that means take out the catcher and I wouldn’t put it past LaRussa to tell his player to get Albert down even when it wasn’t necessary.
Posted under Uncategorized
April 11th, 2008 at 7:50 am
John Holmes should have named his dick “Albert Pujols” - that’s how big of a dick Phat Albert has become.
Fuck him.
April 11th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Great work. Ol’ Bernie seems to have forgotten the difference between scrappy and dirty. One is always acceptable, the other never is.
I would compare Bernie to Dick Justice, but even Dick won’t knob-slobber the local manager that much.
April 11th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I’m over it, but I do like the fact that Backe called him out on it. The same way I liked it when Rafer Alston went “skip 2 my lou” on Sasha Vujacic.
If you wanna win in sports, it never pays to be nice. If you play “the good guys” role, you end up going 73-89 like our Astros last year. Or you lose to the Chargers by forty points because nobody on your team gets fired up when Drayton Florence cheap-shots your QB. On the other hand, if you’re a complete dick like Ozzie Guillen, you end up winning the world series.
I realize that Tim Duncan defies this theory, but I feel that Bruce Bowen more than makes up for Duncan’s polite demeanor.
Long story short, props to you, Backe. Maybe it’ll inspire some of the other guys on our team to not be complete poons. Anyways, what’s the over/under on # of pitches Backe throws to Pujols before he beans him?
April 12th, 2008 at 12:37 am
Is it too early to give up on a season? I can’t remember a time I’ve been this disillusioned.
April 12th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
DT,
Yes. When you think of how new many players on this team are, they’ve barely had time to gel as a group. Moreover, the ideal lineup that Wade & Cooper had in mind (with Wigginton and Matsui healthy) has yet to take the field.
That said, I’m seriously worried about Roy. The rest of the starters have been ok behind him (definitely better than expected), but without our ace, we’re sunk. Not Pirates sunk, but sunk nonetheless.
April 12th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Pence starts the night with two strike-outs… /wrists. Luckily Berkman and Tejada are both tearing it up still. I’m not expecting 45 homers from Berkman, but I think he could very easily post his best all-around season ever. I think he for sure gets back over 1.000 OPS again this year.
Now come on Backe, let’s see if we can’t pick up our first W for a starting pitcher in our rotation.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:56 am
C’mon, fellas, Albert Pujols is NOT a dirty player…in the least. At least you acknowledged that he was told to slide/get down by his teammate. Backe was right to say something, as was Albert to apologize, but I don’t think he was trying to play dirty.
And all this “we have so many new players” excuse isn’t doing much for me–we have an entirely new outfield (unless you count that dinosaur Duncan) and new left side of the infield and things are going pretty good so far. I often scream at LaRussa (from the comfort of my couch) for all his ridiculous tinkering, but he’s got this group playing with an unselfish team-first attitude that, at least so far, is working.
Cooper = fired in two years.