Allen Huber "Bud" Selig has yet to suspend pitcher Ryan Dempster for deliberately hitting Alex Rodriguez two days ago. Selig had better hurry. The Yankees play two games today at The Stadium against Toronto, the first at 1:00 PM. If Selig has not suspended Dempster by then it will be open season on Rodriguez. How could Selig suspend Toronto starter Esmil Rogers if he deliberately hits Rodriguez if he had not suspended the pitcher who began the target shooting. Oh, wait. Rogers is Dominican, so it's OK to suspend him.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Great White Father
The Major Baseball League (MBL) suspended yet another player born in the Dominican Republic for 50 games: Bartolo Colon, a pitcher with Oakland...
Colon tested positive for testosterone, same as fellow Bay area Dominican San Francisco Giant Melky Cabrera who was suspended for 50 games August 15, 2012. So what's the box score on 50 game suspensions? Something like 12 of 21 are Dominicans?The MBL treats the Dominican Republic like a colony. Why isn't there more concern about this arrangement, which culminates with Dominican players being discarded disproportionately? Star players, especially those born in the USA, are pretty much immune from detection and even more so from punishment.
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Manny Ramirez, the only Hall of Fame caliber player ever to serve a suspension for using banned performance enhancing drugs (PED), was born in the Dominican Republic but grew up in New York. Rodriguez was born in New York but has strong ties to the Dominican Republic.
I'm guessing that the Boston Red Sox outrage was unusual in its virulence and that a team from north of the border will not be nearly so hot headed. Players are players but Toronto is not Boston.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Major Baseball League: a new phrase is coined.
Now when some jerk like Cole Hamels of the Philadelphia Phillies takes it upon himself hit a rookie like Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals with a pitch he can accompany his cowardly act with a paraphrase of the line used for decades by players in the National Football League (NFL): "Welcome to the Major Baseball League".
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MLB must take lesson from past and suspend Dempster
Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY Sports 1:38 a.m. EDT August 20, 2013
It is the biggest regret of Russ Springer's baseball career.
He wishes he could take back that night of May 16, 2006, throwing the one pitch that still haunts him today.
Springer admitted Monday for the first time in an interview with USA TODAY Sports that he intentionally hit home run king Barry Bonds, who was immersed in a performance-enhancing drug scandal that rocked baseball.
Springer now hopes Boston Red Sox starter Ryan Dempster can live with himself for repeating the same act Sunday night against New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, the primary target of Major League Baseball's Biogenesis drug investigation.
WATCH AGAIN: Ryan Dempster plunks A-Rod
MORE: MLB willing to release A-Rod evidence
"I wasn't proud of it then," Springer, an 18-year veteran, said in a telephone interview from his Louisiana home, "and I'm not proud of it now. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't hit him.
"I didn't like him, he didn't have a reputation of being too nice to other players, but that's not why I hit him. I wasn't trying to defend the game against allegations he had against him for PEDs.
"I just knew the way everyone felt about him, and I just got caught up in the moment. So I hit him on purpose.
"Now, I have to live with that for the rest of my life."
So does Dempster.
Dempster, of course, denies hitting Rodriguez on purpose. He says the pitch got away from him, just like the other three that nearly hit Rodriguez.
Yet unlike Springer that evening, Dempster was issued only a warning and was permitted to stay in the game.
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This is the dynamic I mentioned in my previous post, which called for Dempster to receive the A-Rod suspension of 211 games. It is the most unfair two person match up in the three major American team sports. The pitcher is allowed to fire the ball at 90 miles per hour at any batter he does not like for any reason. The worst punishment, if any, the pitcher is likely to receive is a minimal suspension. The batter could die or suffer a career ending injury. The batter has no recourse. If the batter charges the mound, the batter will be suspended. The catcher will usually intercede and protect his pitcher even if the batter attempts to get at the pitcher. For attempting revenge, the batter will be ejected.
Even if the batter gets to the pitcher he may suffer added humiliation and frustration. See current White Sox manager Robin Ventura when years ago he had the audacity as a batter to charge pitcher Nolan Ryan after Ryan had hit him. Ryan famously got Ventura in a head lock and punched his head repeatedly. This for Ventura having the temerity to take offense at Ryan's God given baseball bully right to hit any batter whenever his head hunting mean spirited impulse became engaged. Or maybe it was 'roid rage in Ryan's case. Here is by far the most viewed post on this blog:
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
More on possible steroid use by Nolan Ryan.
Maybe it's an age thing that makes me so outraged at what Dempster and the Red Sox fans did two days ago. I cannot tell how many western movies and even TV shows I watched as a kid in which the moral lessen was that vigilantism and mob rule are un-American and must be opposed even if it is by an individual, usually a sheriff. This theme was even in the non-western movie "To Kill a Mockingbird", which takes place in the deep south during the depression. Aging lawyer Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) waits outside the jail, which contains his black client accused of raping a white woman, reading a book waiting for the lynch mob during the night. The mob is ultimately dispersed when Finch's nine year old daughter "Scout" engages one of them in friendly casual conversation. The man urges the others to go home. They were all decent law abiding citizens who got caught up in the mentality of the mob, like those 30,000 plus people in Fenway Park in Boston two nights ago. Good thing they didn't have a rope. Good thing Ryan Dempster didn't have a gun.
So will Selig do the obviously right thing and suspend Dempster? Selig has already sent a clear message by not acting quickly. Whatever minimal punishment, if any, Selig administers it will be too little, too late. Mob rule is OK in Selig's MBL.
One thing is for sure. This has divided the players, which can only be good for the owners.
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