Baseballhead:
Lazy, Stupid and Ignorant

Michael Cox

Just an aside before we begin -- when choosing to drink only water at a nightclub recently, it came to my attention that most people don't share the amusement inherent in repeated cries of "I am soooo hydrated."

Unfortunately, a certain beer-drinker was even less amusing last week as he piled out of the Comiskey Park stands with his boy (oh, those heartwarming father-son ballpark outings) and cold-cocked Royals first-base coach Tom Gamboa. Ladies and gentlemen, if you didn't know what a bona fide moron looked like before, you do now.

I really don't want to rehash the event itself, which you've no doubt seen repeated ad nauseam on the nation's cable news and sports channels. I would, however, like to commend the Royals' entire roster on their self-restraint in not turning the guy into a stain. Such decorum wasn't shown the last time an imbecile came onto the field with assault on his mind at Comiskey -- in 1971 a ticketholder was pummeled until bloody by various Orioles after he attempted to attack Baltimore OF Don Buford in the on-deck circle.

These days, my e-mail heats up whenever a "fan incident" hits the media, primarily because of the irresponsible use of the term "fan." In this case, it was even worse as hysteria and hype ran rampant in the day or so after the attack. An ESPN.com headline told us this was "the unthinkable." Associated Press writer Nancy Armour called it "a scene athletes have feared for years."

Of course, it was neither "unthinkable," nor something to especially fear (as long as you've got all those large, muscular athletes on the field). It was simply a skinny little guy with one too many beers in him wanting to get some action, and since the family brought him to a ballpark instead of a bar, instead of blindsiding some poor schlep on the street he went after a first-base coach. (A family member later said "he only had three beers, he wasn't drunk." State troopers across the nation giggled for a brief moment.) The major difference is that when the idiot claims the other guy started it (and he does), there are dozens of rational witnesses who can and will come forward to testify in a court of law that the defendant is indeed full of crap.

Then there's the usual "what if the guy had a weapon" hysteria, usually fed by some beat writer browbeating some 22-year-old player into admitting he doesn't want to die, then mentioning that Monica Seles was stabbed a decade ago. In this case, admirably, Carlos Beltran refused to bite: "What happened today, that tells us no matter where we are, we're not safe."

Logically, the "how do we prevent it from happening again" column-filler follows, despite the fact that there's only one real answer: throw the book at the guy. (Ironically, the son faces an additional charge of assaulting an officer. Way to nurture the fruit of your loins through his difficult years, dad.)

As for the "fan" moniker, Gamboa himself said it best:

"I think that's very unfair, even though I'm the victim, for anyone to portray the city of Chicago or fans at Comiskey as being at fault. When I was coaching the Cubs, I thrived on those games with the Sox, the passion and the intensity. I think Chicago has fantastic fans. I'm not looking at [the attackers] as Sox fans. These two idiots...I don't even know why they were at the ballpark, but obviously they are not fans."

I will note that several outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, stopped referring to either attacker as a "fan," although I would even question the substitution of the letter "f" with the letter "m." You don't earn that "m" by attacking a guy from behind.

The bottom line is that you can search forever for rational reasons why someone would do something like this, when the fact is simply that some people really are that stupid.

From the Dope Desk: It's not bad enough that violence intruded on the pennant races last week -- now we have to deal with a "drug scandal," too. Apparently weary of trying to ferret out the gay player, Newsday began a new angle, reporting that "a source close to the team" says up to seven Mets have smoked marijuana. Accompanying the story was a poor-quality, four-year-old photo of Grant Roberts taking a bong hit -- a photo obtained from an extortionist who didn't get her payoff.

Of course, the article contains absolutely nothing in the way of proof of anything, and the informant has a suspiciously detailed knowledge of the drug habits of both the major-and minor-league rosters (I tell ya, that's one awfully close source), but the tabloid nature of the story didn't stop the Mets' brass from stuttering and stammering their way into an even bigger hole.

Manager Bobby Valentine, quoted in the original article as saying "I've seen signals, but nothing definitive," later backpedaled with "I guarantee you no one was in uniform and smoking marijuana, unless they were running around with a whole lot of Visine in their eyes."

Even owner Fred Wilpon added to the flames via contextual manipulation by the local press. Despite his direct statement that he was "embarrassed" by the "image problem...in terms of what we saw yesterday or today in the newspapers or in the media," the AP ran with the headline, "Mets owner 'embarrassed' by team's marijuana use." It apparently isn't even "alleged" marijuana use anymore.

Moral: when three-quarters of New York City's daily papers are tabloids, a losing season can't possibly be due to poor play. Next week: how Madonna figures into all this.

Can't A Guy Just Be Amazingly Good Anymore? The Mets aren't the only team which has the media conjuring additional reasons for their woes. Apparently the Red Sox are up in arms about Manny Ramirez's work ethic, according to ESPN's Sean McAdam. Again citing anonymous sources (however, these include a "rival major-league executive" and "Red Sox official," due to ESPN's access to quality anonymous sources), Ramirez's lackadaisical play has made him an overpaid liability (a sidebar to the story calls him, among others, "Dead Weight").

Ramirez's failure to run out a ground ball in Tampa Bay (for which he apologized immediately and profusely) was obviously a mere symptom of a "lackadaisical approach" that has limited him to only the third-best OPS in all of baseball this year, barely ahead of such lightweights as possible (bonehead voters permitting) AL MVP Alex Rodriguez. A little more hustle is surely all Ramirez would have needed to surpass Barry Bonds' season numbers, but because he "frequently trots to first on grounders" and "causes distractions," the team would have gladly packaged him as a throw-in when they traded Jose Offerman to Seattle.

I mean, look at the freakin' evidence! He could have been safe if he had run to first faster that one time! And that other time, when he didn't get to that fly ball? Everyone agrees that he should have! I dunno which is worse, his malaise or his hubris!

"Something else will happen with Manny,'' the unnamed team official later says, no doubt shaking his head disapprovingly. "I don't know what, but it will be something.'' Could be a too-slow home run trot. Could be a base on balls when they really needed him to swing the bat. You just never know with that lazy slob.

about the author

An unnamed Strikethree.com source has told us that Michael Cox is a frickin' clubhouse cancer. Suggest it's all the glazed pastries at mc@strikethree.com.