Yanks/Jays, Bonds
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by Lenora X
What Exactly Is Wrong With The Blue Jays?
Last night, a nice outing by Clemens, nice offensive output and what's starting to feel like a routine 9-2 victory.
But, ahem.
Monday, during his first at bat, the Blue Jays' pitcher threw behind A-Rod. I guess that was some sort of weird two-months delayed payback for A-Rod yelling "HA!" and causing (HA!) a Blue Jays' infielder to miss a pop-up.
Bizarre. An overreaction. But . . . OK, I guess.
But then, last night, A-Rod gets drilled by Josh "Control" Towers. And just in case there was ANY question in A-Rod's mind that it was intentional, Towers sort of dismissively gestured to A-Rod when A-Rod looked out at him, as if to say "get down to first base and shut up."
What the . . . ? A-Rod was justifiably pissed. They took a shot at him the day before and he didn't react at all. How many freaking shots are they supposed to get?
So the benches empty and there is lots of that cute milling around that guys do in baseball fights. I didn't see any actual punches thrown and eventually order was restored.
One Blue Jay who seemed particularly incensed was Matt Stairs. Now, Stairs was hit by Vizcaino the day before. But Stairs can't be THAT clueless, can he? He honestly thinks that Vizcaino put the go-ahead run on base in the eighth inning -- on purpose? And, in case no one's noticed . . . Stairs sucks. Why would you avoid pitching to him? In any event the big doofus lost interest in fighting when confronted with the large form of Shelly Duncan in his way.
At first it was almost cute, in some weird north-of-the-border way, that the Blue Jays were still upset about this two months later. But after last night, it's just plain goofy, and wrong.
I have to attribute it to manager John Gibbons, who, it's been shown, doesn't know how or when to pick his fights (and got his ass kicked by that animal Ted Lilly of all people as a result).
But all's well that ends well. Towers got a richly-deserved loss, and Roger put one between Rios' numbers. Perhaps when Rios takes Gibbons out behind the batting cages and opens up a can o' whupass, Gibbons will get the message that his irrational behavior has unintended consequences.
I Almost Hate To Say It, But . . .
I lost a lot of respect for Hank Aaron last night.
In case you were under a rock, Barry Bonds hit #756 last night and while the game was stopped there was a taped message from Aaron congratulating Bonds, etc., and (shudder) saying something about "hopefully your feat will inspire young people to follow their dreams" or some such nonsense.
For months, Aaron made it clear he wanted nothing to do with any commemoration of Bonds hitting 756. He wouldn't be there, he "didn't know how to spell his [Bonds'] last name."
Then you turn around and show up on the DiamondVision congratulating Bonds?
Bad job, Henry. Very. Bad. Job.
Shame on MLB and Bud Selig for leaning on Aaron to do this. But more blame to Aaron for doing it.
