May 23rd, 2007 → 9:17 am @ Seth Mnookin // No Comments
In the eighth inning of last night’s Julian Tavarez-led 7-3 win over fast-fading Mike Mussina and the Yankees, New York launched a mini rally against Hideki Okajima. With the bases loaded and one out, Jorge Posada hit a grounder to third. A-Rod, running from first, slid directly into the bag; at the last minute he seemed to realize that, since baseball is a team sport, he was supposed to try to break up an inning-ending double play. So what did he do? In his trademark, peculiarly feminine style of being aggressive, he flailed out his elbow. And hit Dustin Pedroia in the crotch.
I haven’t played baseball since Little League, but even I know the correct way to break up a DP is to slide to the left of the bag in an attempt to take out the second baseman’s (or the SS’s) legs while he’s making a throw; as long as you can reach the bag with your right arm and you’re more or less in the basepath, this is totally kosher. It’s not kosher to flail around like a beached mackerel and elbow someone in the cup.
A-Rod’s chicken-shit play was, weirdly, lauded by Paul O’Neill and John Flaherty, two of the Yankees’ TV commentators; since I’ve avoided watching too many games on YES, I’d forgotten just how bad the two of them are. Michael Kay, to his credit, more or less called out A-Rod…or at least agreed that Dustin had a grievance. In the end, obviously, it didn’t matter. Pedroia was fine, and only casualty was Darkman’s scoreless-inning streak. But it served as yet one more reminder — as if anyone needs one — as to why Slappy McBlue Lips is such an easy guy to hate: He actually deserves it.
EDIT: After I put this up, I came across this article in today’s Daily News in which Pedroia is quoted about the incident: “He went in late and kind of threw an elbow. A little cheap, but no big deal….He’s the one who slid in like that. Some people play like that and some people slide in, good, clean slide. I think he probably got a little carried away. It happens.” Pedroia then made clear that at least he knew the correct way to get down and dirty: “I have to turn two against the Yankees 19 times a year. I know now that when he’s coming in, my arm slot gets dropped to the floor. That’s it. No big deal.” I really do love that little guy…
Post Categories: A-Rod & Dustin Pedroia & Red Sox & Yankees
Mr. Furious
17 years ago
Oh, to see a throw careen off A-Job’s noggin into right field would be so sweet.
Mr. Furious
17 years ago
And that throw is from Pedroia…that’s not even counting the pitch Schilling bounces off A-rod tonight.
HFXBOB
17 years ago
Yeah, screw A-Rod. I don’t care how many home runs the guy hits, I hope he never ends up in a Red Sox uniform. Effeminate or whatever, there’s definitely something wrong about him. Whether he’s hitting or slumping, he seems to have a negative effect on the team he’s with.
Theo must be feeling pretty good these days, not just for the obvious reasons. A couple of the much-maligned pitching acquisitions from last year, Tavarez and Lopez, are looking a whole lot better now, aren’t they?
wired1
17 years ago
As an all too regular YES viewer I have to admit Flaherty is usually pretty good. As is Leiter. Kay of course is horrible. He’ll repeat every half truth and rumor as fact; Manny Ramirez and Enrique Wilson were ‘drinking in a bar’, the Sox never made a competitive offer to Damon etc.
Flaherty and Leiter both go out of their way to give some credit to the Sox; Flaherty in particular is fond of many of the players, having come up in the system and knowing the team from his tryout a few years ago. They have carried on Kaat’s tradition of taking Michael Kay with a grain of salt.
O’Neil is horrible. He’ll just rant about how gutsy and classy the Yankees were in the glory days of the late nineties.
Shalomar
17 years ago
Actually, coming from first base, the baserunner generally slides to the right of the bag and reaches for the base with his left hand.
Can we give a shout to Mike Lowell, who in his 1 year + here has been a semi-stud offensively and defensively, and is clearly a bench/clubhouse leader. It looked like he was – thank j_sus – giving wily mo some hitting advice last night on the pine.
tinisoli
17 years ago
Agreed: Schilling needs to nail A-Rod tonight. Not only did he elbow Pedroia in the gut (or crotch), but he used his legs to drive his body up off the base in order to get some extra oomph behind the blow. He can talk all day about how these things (including the Slap Heard ‘Round the World on Arroyo in ’04) are just the instinctual, innocent actions of a guy who wants to win, but anyone who sees this guy pull this crap can recognize that this is the baseball equivalent of Bruce Bowen kneeing Steve Nash in the balls. Wanting to win may play into it, sure, but I think this style of play speaks more to one’s personality in general, and specifically to an inner rage and an overwhelmingly childish narcissism. Maybe A-Rod read that SI poll about how he’s one of the least friendly players, so now he’s going to start spiking and elbowing the cute, cuddly little white guys everyone seems to love.
Again: Schilling needs to drill his ass.
jcelephant
17 years ago
We need a good old fashioned donny-brook to send a message to A-Fraud and his cohorts. The only guys I respect on that team are Torre and Jeter. The rest of them are hired gun a-holes.
kinshane
17 years ago
My initial thought upon seeing the play was, “Great. I can’t wait until the Bloviating One puts one in his ribs.” But lets think about this: who would lose more if there were some manner of violent clash between the Stankees and the Red Sox? They have nothing to lose; we have nothing to gain. Their season is shit and going down fast. Our season is going swimmingly. What if A-Fraud charges Schill and cracks him in the shoulder? No matter how feminine his maneuvers, Curt is getting old and I’d prefer we don’t lose our #1 (by rotation) pitcher. You know V-Tek would go nuts and start crushing fools. Do we want to take a chance the captain messes up his hand thrashing HGHiambi in a bench-clearer?
Let Scrappy Pedroia handle it in his own way. We have the best record in baseball. Let’s not jeopardize that for short-term feelgoodery.
rog
17 years ago
I say wait until the final series between the two teams in September when the Evildoers are mathematically eliminated so that they don’t use a brawl as motivation to start playing better. And it would be much more fun to see this thing unfold at Fenway anyway.
Sully
17 years ago
didn’t a Sox player slide about 4-5 feet outside the basepath earlier the game trying to break up a double play? Now who was that? oh wait…it was Pedroia!! People need to relax…
rog
17 years ago
I don’t remember Pedroia elbowing anybody in the nads, which is the, um, bone of contention here. Sliding hard to break up a double-play is part of the game but throwing an elbow at someone’s crotch is not so cool.
Sully
17 years ago
you’re right…sliding hard to break up a double play IS part of the game. But sliding way outside the basepath isn’t. A-Rod was wrong…but let’s not make Pedroia out to be a saint in all this.
kinshane
17 years ago
Sully’s right. Going for someone’s harbles is quite different from a hard slide in an attempt to break up a play. I still think there should be no plunking. Brushing back is cool, though.
Just in case, maybe we can sign Jay Miller to a short term contract. Just in case.
tinisoli
17 years ago
Pedroia’s wide slide was a bit of a stretch but hardly out of the ordinary; A-Rod’s move, whether intended as payback or not, was extraordinary. To me it wasn’t so much the elbow, but the way that he thrust himself off the bag towards the mound in order to hit Pedroia, who was throwing from the infield side of the bag. Slappy essentially slid in from one angle and then propelled himself in another. It’s same as his bush-league move in ’04: Plenty of people make contact with the pitcher on such a play, perhaps even intentionally. But most do not try to bitch-slap the ball out of a fielder’s glove.
tinisoli
17 years ago
And he is lying if he claims that it was unintentional. You simply do not slide in at one angle and then “come up” in another without intending to do so. Punk.
redsoxtimes
17 years ago
I have a link to the video of the slide here.
It was absolutely Arod being Arod. Driven to succeed at all costs, hypercompetitive, and just a little dirty when that adrenaline gets pumping. We’ve seen this from him before. He’s not a Milton Bradley, but he does cross just over that line, just often enough.
Tim
http://www.redsoxtimes.com
jtredsox5
17 years ago
When it comes to sliding out of the baseline, it is generally accepted that as long as you can reach the bag with one hand, it is kosher. So Pedroia wasn’t out of the baseline.
And Arod sucks.
Simple as that.
Koot
17 years ago
You don’t miss much when you don’t watch YES. It’s most often Michael Kay gushing about Jeter whenever he’s at bat or on base, or in the dugout or in the field. He does nothing to hide his shameless mancrush on Jeter, and has now taken to wearing it like a badge of honor.
I used to enjoy Paul O’Neil, because he did nothing to hide the fact he hates Michael Kay. But, since a state of disaster has been declared in Yankeeland, these two have banded together over the past couple nights to relive past Yankee glory.
Oh yea, and to argue over who gets the biggest boner by watching Derek Jeter. They do love to argue about that.
rebbe sox
17 years ago
A-Rod’s lunge at Pedroia wasn’t so much unsportsmanlike or overly aggressive, it was just … well … silly. For all his talent and athleticism, the man just looks like a dork sometimes.
If you want to see a member of the Yankees who is the true embodiment of evil, however, look no further than Jason Giambi, the walking pharmacy.
Remember when Giambi said, “I was wrong for doing that stuff,” and “Players, ownership, everybody should say, ‘We made a mistake.'”? Well, today it looks like every major league player and owner is also going to have to apologize for Jason flunking an amphetamines test this season.
This guy’s hypocrisy and self-righteous chutzpah wreaks of an odor far more foul that A-Rod’s limp wristed shenanigans on the base paths.
rebbe sox
17 years ago
No one is going to read this because the original post was so long ago. I just had to comment, after last night’s game, that Seth is right. A-Rod is a gutless punk.
Our little Alex is certainly getting a reputation for himself.
Last night, in a key situation against Toronto, A-Rod yelled something while running the bases on a two-out popup over the infield. The Toronto players say he yelled, “I got it!” A-Rod says he just yelled, “Hah!” Either way, as a result, Howie Clark dropped the ball that would have ended the Yankees’ half of the ninth. Following A-Rod’s yell, the Yankees scored three more times, putting the game out of reach for Toronto.
A-Rod says that yelling to distract opposition players is common in baseball. Yeah, right — in drunken amateur leagues.
Make it 8262. ARod IS a gutless punk.