Thursday, September 12, 2013

Seriously, these are adults?

During my morning coffee break I was cruising the intarwebs to see if Mr Putin had finished collecting the Syrian chemical weapons inventory with his bare hands and no shirt before destroying them in a bonfire while the Spetsnaz roasts marshmallows.  Apparently he has only submitted this plan on paper.  However, three small clicks later I am led to an amazing show of how silly professional baseball has become.  We go to a baseball game in Florida, where the Marlins were hosting the Atlanta Braves.  Late in the game the rookie pitcher, having an amazing game already, clocks his first MLB home run.  This is in front of the home crowd in what will apparently be his last game of the season.  It was a beautiful bomb, a nice long arc into the stands that sends the crowd into a frenzy.  When he hits the ball, he watches it go as he slowly starts towards first tossing the bat after two steps.  He then trots the bases to home plate.

Now, up to this point, I have not seen anything in this series of events that I have not seen many, many times before in televised baseball games.  In fact, it is rather subdued compared to what I have seen the superstars of the baseball world do on clocking one out.  At no point was anything showing to be disrespectful.  However, he apparently insulted the whole visiting team.  The benches clear.

Ahem.

Gentlemen.  You play a game for a living.  You play a game in a sport where the smallest of "injuries" regularly sidelines a player for weeks.  Why yes, I was listening when a player was put on the IR list for a strained pinkie.  In other sports, players play through injuries like fractured and broken bones.  They literally get stitched up and go back out.  Please get some perspective.  You are payed six to seven figures (sometimes 8) to play a game, and not a terribly demanding one compared to other professional sports.  Your pitcher hung one out that got tattooed into the bleachers.  There was every reason to start slowly, since it was obviously gone.  Based on the game up to that point, he should have been waving to the crowd to raise the noise  level after that hit.  Based on his pitching and the score at that point, I think he would have been justified to flip off the opposing pitcher all the way around the bases.  He didn't.  Learn to lose gracefully, because complaining about this "insult" reinforces the opinion that you are a bunch of overpaid whiny children.

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