All I have to say is thank god the Nationals and the Cubs needed a fifth and decisive game. Not only because it added a hell of a lot of intrigue, controversy, and - most importantly - Washington centric humor to the NLDS. But also because that fifth game came late on a Thursday night and ultimately resulted in Jon Lester giving us a blueprint for how to best enjoy our weeknight to the fullest come Friday morning. Let's be real, what we just witnessed is peak drunkiness. Jon Lester not so carefully tightroping the thin line between losing all inhibition and plunging into full-on inebriation. Having completely short-circuited any sort of active filter by completely submerging it in innumerable ounces of domestic beer, but being coherent enough to immediately apologize for it being out of commission. Kind of forgetting some things that just happened, but also being "with us" enough to discuss the gist. Still clever enough to invoke the use of an idiom, but not without completely idiocizing it. Being super observant, but not acting appropriately on those observations. Giving a relatively obvious answer...that was as genuine and fitting as it could have possibly been given his BAC. When you go out tonight I want you to aspire to become as exactly as tuned up as Jon Lester was last night. You'll likely wake up a manageable hangover, some stories you half remember, and some friends that don't mind filling you in the details because they were able to laugh at at/with you instead of apologizing profusely for you. When you really think it, is there a better possible outcome for celebratory binge drinking?
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As Casey Stern ever-so-relevantly stated, asking an MLB player how he expects the team that just struck him out to end his (post) season to perform going forward is unquestionably a clown question, bro. Shoutout to him for pointing it out, because the fact that I didn't think twice when I heard it live is proof positive that we've been enabling the Barnum's & Bailey's of sports reporting by being complicit in their endless deep dive into purposeless prognostication. It's as if we have become so beaten down with predictions of the completely unpredictable that we (well me, specifically) didn't even feel the painfulness of that awkward inquiry. It's absolute absurd to expect even the most professional of player to break down the nuances of the next series on the heels of him ending up on the wrong side of previous one, but the fact that it was casually slipped in as the next thing up on the notepad is a sign of how forced, repetitive, and - for lack of a better term - stupid sports talk tends to be. A member of the media had no qualms with asking Bryce Harper to grab Miss Cleo's crystal ball and do his best Tony Romo impression but I didn't even blink when he did, because what's the point in covering baseball if you're not giving yourself an opportunity to be right about the highly random result?! 
TribLive- The Pirates are dealing with fallout after Pittsburgh rapper Wiz Khalifa pretended to smoke a marijuana joint on the pitcher's mound at PNC Park on Wednesday night.
"Marijuana is a probated substance in all of our drug programs and it is unfortunate this situation occurred," MLB spokesman Pat Courtney said on Thursday via email. "The Pirates have informed us that this should not have happened." Khalifa, 27, who was born Cameron Jibril Thomaz, was invited to throw out a ceremonial first pitch before the game against the Baltimore Orioles. Wearing a shirt with "Legalize it" emblazoned on the front, Khalifa, who attended Taylor Allderdice High School, paused for photos and autographs with chairman Bob Nutting, manager Clint Hurdle and several players. ----- I'm not even sure what to make of this, since Wiz Khalifa advocating the puff-puff-pass lifestyle was a foregone conclusion the second he accepted an invite to go literally anywhere outside of his house. I do, however, find the juxtaposition of hip hop's most lovable pot head to sports most repressed league to be rather hilarious. I'm sure at least some people within the Pittsburgh Pirates organization knew exactly what they were signing up for, but I love the MLB's insistence on doing damage control for the perceived promotion of a recreational drug that is bound to be universally legalized sooner rather than later. Like, I imagine that beads of sweat started forming on the foreheads of their public relations team because 6 parents with children that are approximately 4 years away with hitting blunts in the park with their friends were offended because a tatted up rapper glorified the act of doing so. As far as I am concerned, any reaction was an overreaction to the overreaction of a handful of overly strict parents whose kids are undoubtedly going to smoke pot regardless of whether or not the ceremonial first pitch thrower at a Pirates' game had its slogan on his t-shirt. That said, the mental image of how that overreaction probably went down did put a smile on my face. 
LBS- In the third inning of Detroit’s 5-3 loss to Cleveland on Wednesday, Ausmus and catcher James McCann were both ejected by home plate umpire Quinn Walcott for arguing balls and strikes. Just a handful of pitches later, new Tigers catcher John Hicks failed to catch a Buck Farmer delivery and it hit Wolcott in the shoulder on the fly, knocking him down.
Most people felt that it was a simple cross-up involving a pitcher and catcher who had just been abruptly put together, but the Cleveland TV broadcast — and one writer — implied that something more sinister was going on. ------ Delayed reaction to an off-target pitch, orrr a vengeful, intentionally plunking of an umpire that a piss poor team deemed a little too hasty in throwing out their manager? You be the judge. I mean, the fact of the matter is that even having to question whether or not it was an accident has to be considered a win for the pitcher/catcher combo that potentially conspired to bean blue, no? I don't watch enough baseball to know whether or not John Hicks' hand-eye coordination is too trusty to completely whiff on a pitch that was far from wild. I would imagine that it's arguable given that a professional catcher of oft-unpredictable projectiles that move at a rapid pace just Daria'd the shit out of that laser. However, if there's a way to make it look like it's not then it's to come in fresh off the bench as a backup and crouch over the outside corner as an allegedly inaccurate fastball comes up and inside with some heat behind it. I don't feel completely comfortable crying conspiracy here, and I'm pretty sure that skepticism is all it takes to get away with hitting an umpire with some chin music. It's up to a more trained eye to determine whether or not this was an athlete-taught lesson, but either way it could teach Quinn Walcott to keep a tighter strike zone in the future. A painful example of impact correction, if you will. 
Imagine hearing the song 'Rock You Like A Hurricane' at a baseball game and automatically believing that some sadistic, second rate "DJ" was tucked away in the annals of the stadium maniacally laughing while making light of the natural disaster that is barreling towards the home town of the visiting team. Like, you really got to be desperately looking for controversy to assume that some dude making minimum wage to press a button is creating inappropriate, opponent-specific playlists. Could it be that a popular oldie just happened to be up next in the rotation that almost definitely doesn't get filtered pregame, since - ya know - what are the odds that a catchy, common tune is going to remind the Marlins that if the Braves don't crush them then a tropical cyclone of epic proportions just might? Nope, absolutely not. Definitely some behind-the-scenes dickhead with a twisted sense of humor and too much time on his hands. Only possible way an awkward, untimely reference could be made by way of a universally overused pump-up song. In fact, I bet 'The Scorpions' were the only 80's rock group to use a super over-over-top metaphor to describe careless, casual sex. Since that's more than likely the case, there's simply no way the Braves' half-asleep music technician could have ended up on the ass end of such unfortunate irony without being a tone deaf jerk. It's a shame his employer is too much of a coward to admit that...
Please, for the love of all that is holy (and thus inherently just given the traditionalist values of baseball), will someone get Steve Gelbs in a booth?! Before watching this clip I didn't know his name, and - to this second - I can't speak to his familiarity with the game. However, it feels like every broadcast I tune into makes it more and more clear that commentators don't truly need to know what the fuck they are talking about as long as they are talking about it with conviction. So, you tell me, is there anyone more equipped to fill dead air by speaking confidently about literally anything than the guy that casually barehanded a foul ball better than a vast majority of the players he's paid to cover while also undertaking the task of speaking eloquently about the public's response to a natural disaster? I think not, but - then again - I'm biased. I'd be trying to nap my way through the third inning of another tragic Mets' performance in early September, and the guy that made a web gem without even changing his pitch would probably provide the perfect lullaby with how cool and smooth he is under pressure. 
Well, well, well...would you look at that? All the Tampa Bay Rays organization had to do was offer up a safe building to play some ball in, and they come away looking like their front office values their place among the MLB community above all else. Never mind that a vast majority of said front office probably wasn't in attendance because the actual occupants of the stadium were on the road in Kansas City. Doesn't matter that they may not have had a choice in the matter after the league set it up. All it took was a video montage for a displaced visiting team, a moment of silence, and some proceeds going to help those whose lives have been uprooted, and the Tampa Bay Rays walk away looking like a selfless franchise! Oh well, it's not like the Texas Rangers could have known how easy it would be to navigate an unfortunate situation without making themselves look like money hungry assholes. I'm sure in the moment it felt right to make the underwater city of Houston take their home games on the road, even if it meant acting as the pariah by responding to a request to switch series in such a socially awkward fashion that it would make Jerry Seinfeld want to bury his face in Kesha's hair. In fairness, who would have guessed that even appearing to sacrifice your own best interests while opening your doors for those in need would be so widely praised? Sigggggh, it's really a damn shame that Texas Rangers' management missed out on suuuuuuch an inconspicuous opportunity to look like decent human beings. But hey - look on the bright side - at least they didn't miss out on the all-important revenue stream that they'll get from three home games that will be played well after their team has mathematically eliminated from the postseason! 
TMZ- The Royals exec was talking to the media about pitcher Danny Duffy's DUI -- when he was asked if there were "educational protocols" in place to help keep other players out of trouble.
That's when Moore revealed team programs to educate players about the dangers of drugs, alcohol and porn. "We talk about pornography and the effects of what that does to the minds of players and the distractions ... And how that leads to abuse of -- domestic abuse -- to abuse of women." Moore said the team also discusses how porn impacts relationships. Moore says the goal is to help his players become better people -- husbands, brothers, teammates. -------- I guess that settles that. Here I was thinking that baseball's entertainment value was being neutered by old, repressed white men and their antiquated, overly traditionalist values, and...well...according to Dayton Moore I have actually never been more right about anything in my entire fucking life. In fact, this level of accuracy is so foreign to me that I can't even remember the twists and turns we took down the path that led from drinking and driving to jerking off and beating your wife. Is the Royals GM some sort of evil genius that managed to make a connection so goddamned absurd that we instantly forgot that Danny Duffy's drunk ass fell asleep waiting for some french fries? Is he literally so clogged up with cum that he can't answer a laughably unrelated question without referring to the porn that he encourages his players to also avoid at all costs? I don't know what the hell the goal of that answer was, but I genuinely think we should be concerned about the safety of Dayton Moore's loved ones if he truly believes that emptying the tank is the root cause of spousal abuse. I felt like I was sitting around the poker table listening to Steve Carell's character describe a boob as a bag of sand while trying to wrap my brain around that response. Is it possible that the 50 year old General Manager of a professional baseball team has never enlisted some professional help while rubbing one out? If he has, does the result not immediately clear his head of everything but a little harmless self loathing? Has the clubhouse really been brainwashed by this asinine line of thinking? Could I have snapped the Kansas City Royals out of their 43 inning scoreless streak days ago if I just quickly flashed see POV assplay up on their projection screen? What's a horse shoe? What does a horse shoe do? Are there any horse socks? Is anybody listening to me?!? Ahhhh, I have so many questions!!! I guess if I were to sum it up with one I would ask if the whole point of that press conference was to get me to ask myself all the other ones while completely ignoring that one of Dayton Moore's starting pitchers was so inebriated behind the wheel that he couldn't drive-thru something that is literally built for convenience? If not, then what exactly was the point of comparing the actual dangers of mind-altering substance abuse to the fictitious dangers of using visual aides for mind-clearing genital abuse? I may not have any of those answers, but I did come away from what oddly became a public condemnation of technologically enhanced masturbation with a slightly better understanding of something. And that is the underlying inhibitions that ultimately encourage grown men to hurl dangerous projectiles at the heads of other grown men when they exude even the tiniest bit of arousal or excitement on the baseball diamond. 
It's not particularly funny that Kansas City Royals' pitcher, Danny Duffy, was arrested last night for a DUI after passing out in the Burger King drive-thru. There is nothing inherently hilarious about endangering the lives of others by getting behind the wheel after drinking so much that you can't even keep your eyes open long enough for your chicken nuggets to finish frying. That said, the the visual of a professional athlete crying to coax civilians into taking the fall for him after being absolutely conked while trying to have it his way, combined with the fact that the Royals haven't scored a single run in 43 consecutive innings was basically begging for one-liners that bordered on the offensive. That's where a tweeter that forgot to switch away from the 'Fox 4 News' account he contributes to comes in....
— Kyle Coffey (@kylecoffey11) August 29, 2017 You know, this person is probably going to lose their job for tweeting out something that is wildly inappropriate considering the handle that it came from, but there is bright side to this. At least the joke that he was so anxious to get off before he forgot the punchline that he didn't check what he was logged in under will see more eyes now. I wouldn't consider it a tweet that was so funny that it needed multiple hashtags, but the person who crafted it was obviously pretty proud of it. To each his own, as they say. The soon-to-be unemployed dude behind the keyboard might be searching for work very shortly, but you can't say he hasn't found his 15 minutes of fame. Even if everyone that doesn't have an underdeveloped sense of humor would more accurately refer to them as 15 minutes of shame. Update: Turns out it was an anchor who apparently has enough job security to not care whether or not his over-the-top jokes are all that funny before sending them out to the entirety of the internet. I'm honestly more disappointed in the fact that someone with a blue check fell so short of the mark in reaching for laughs then the fact that they reached for laughs on the company account. In my eyes, distasteful becomes unforgivable when it lacks this much wit...
I completely understand the idea of not doing other organizations any favors in a business as cutthroat as professional sports, but I think it can be universally agreed upon that this is taking that concept above and beyond social acceptability. Ultimately, it falls on the league to relocate around natural disasters, but trying to leverage another MLB President for three of his home games when his city is under the sea is as heartless and cold blooded as it gets. Playing off a defense of your own revenue as a defense of your fans' financial commitments is just disgustingly disingenuous. Especially when you consider that every Rangers' fan with a soul would have gladly changed around their schedule to show up to games played one month earlier - when their team was still technically (albeit barely) in contention, mind you - if it meant doing a solid for a struggling neighboring city that was dealing with a hell of a lot more than being 15 games back in the division. At the end of the day, it's not the Texas Rangers' professional responsibility to sacrifice even one single ticket sale, but - since it's quite obviously their moral responsibility - they probably should have known that they were going to end up looking like cruel, insensitive dickheads by refusing to do so. When you poo-poo the idea of undergoing a minor inconvenience on behalf of those undergoing a major catastrophe then you deserve every ounce of backlash that comes your way. Simply agreeing to switch series would have been the easiest positive PR that an organization has ever received, and instead they intentionally pitted themselves against the most sympathetic of parties by claiming "unfairness" in the face of a drowning region that's too distraught and destroyed to give a shit about a first pitch. They temporarily switched the focus of a tragedy that took lives, families, friends, and/or homes to fucking baseball, and the Texas Rangers are shocked that people are pissed off and responding emotionally? 
I can't say I expected to see this. I wasn't exactly keeping tabs on Justin Verlander when the Tigers and Yankees rushed the field faster than a bunch of drunk college kids on upset alert, and that's mostly because I assumed that he would be the one standing safely in the back asking "but guys, why can't we all just get along?!". Other than knowing he takes mirror selfies in dad jeans, I don't know why I thought he would be the dorky one trying to play nice-nice, but he certainly flipped the script on me with that reaction. I mean, if there is anyone on the Tigers that should be standing on the outside looking in while apathetically cashing a check for the remainder of a lost season then it's the guy that plays once every 5 days and is making 28 million for the foreseeable future regardless. I obviously can't speak for Victor Martinez, but when Justin Verlander is shaking off your side of the story like it's a call for a meaty fastball on an 3-0 count then you probably need to accept that your effort to keep your uniform clean was more valiant than your effort to stick up for your teammate(s). Seriously, I have given that "I'm not buying what you're selling because bullshit is a terrible investment" glare way too many times not to immediately recognize it as justified. I'm not familiar with the inner workings of the clubhouse, but I'm pretty sure it's the rarest of occasions when a starting pitcher essentially tells a bat in the middle of the order to sit on the handle. Plus, the tape don't lie and the tape in question makes Justin Verlander look like Ron Artest in comparison Victor Martinez...
I have no idea what the disagreement...that led to the fight...that led to the benches clearing...that led to the goddamn bullpens clearing...was even over, but part of me thinks it's better that way. I could make an educated guess and say that someone probably threw at someone after someone else did something that was deemed inappropriate (but not totally illegal) within the confines of a game that preaches mutual respect but encourages beaning people with projectiles. However - like I said - I don't particularly care. I do wonder what Austin Romine was thinking when he looked a far bigger Miguel Cabrera in the eye as he aggressively ripped off his mask in the most "fuck it, let's go..." fashion of all time, but I don't even want to pick sides on this one. I just want to appreciate it for what it was, and that was two ball players genuinely trying to hit each other with their fists. Sure, the fact that the fucking hot dog guy was just about the only employee in attendance not to rush the plate was a slightly overdramatic, but at least the few punches actually thrown were intended to connect. Honestly? It's just nice to see professional athletes get legitimately pissed off to the point where they can't help but attempt to rearrange each others' faces. Far too often we get the pushing matches that highlight - at most - a face wash or a wildly inaccurately hand swipe. So, while this one was ridiculously overmanned considering only 3-5 people really fought over something that didn't seem to be all that serious, it just appeared to embrace violence in it's purest, most unadulterated form and that's what I look for out of my day game scrapes in late August. 
There's not too many positives for a 37 year old, journeyman pitcher to take away from this once-in-a-lifetime performance that lost it's historic designation on a flubbed grounder in the 9th inning and another, slightly less historic designation on a walk-off home run that took place after the game should have been well over. There's nothing that could have been said to Rich Hill following the start of his life that would have made him feel better about coming away from it completely empty handed from an accomplishment standpoint. This is a guy that probably had no business chasing perfection and he was just steps away from capturing it in a bottle before he got tripped up by the offensive impotence of his teammates and the error of their defensive ways. He may have said all the right things in the post-game interview, but that's only because he's the consummate professional who wouldn't have been made to feel better in that depressing moment by any amount of well-deserved finger pointing....
That said, there is something to be gained from this. Rich Hill would certainly rather have a perfect game or no-hitter on his resume, but he's still in a pretty enviable position. You generally don't hope something this bad happens to you, but - much like holding an act of cheating over your spouse's head - it can be used to your advantage. I mean, if Logan Forsythe doesn't feel eternally indebted to Rich Hill for giving him the opportunity to be a part of greatness only to watch him punt it in the dirt then he has no soul. At the very least, the rest of last night's Dodgers' lineup should feel obligated to buy every one of his meals from now until the end of what appears to be an incredibly promising postseason. It's no spot in the record books, but Rich Hill should consider having the upper hand on the people he spends every day of his life with to be quite the consolation prize. It's not as desirable as tossing a flawless 9 innings, but I'm sure he'll soon realize there are few things more favorable than having a flawless guilt trip after he...well, ya know...gets over having his dream sequence - that was fit for the big screen - shattered by the stone hands and silent bats of his own damn clubhouse. 
Ah, baseball. The sport that prides itself on being legislated "the right way" despite it causing indisputable damage to it's entertainment value...yet even the inanimate object it's played with can't be completely cleared of steroid suspicion. According to those much more interested in the potentially devious boost in home runs, it's very possible that the balls are being juiced. I just don't find that obvious correlation to be anywhere near as humorous as the idea of a professional league - that still hasn't distanced itself from it's PED epidemic - actively "drugging" baseballs in an attempt to enhance the performance of something that doesn't have testable blood. The MLB still hasn't found a way to honor the people who put up historic numbers during an era in which 'HGH' might as well have served as an acronym for "hitters granted help". However, it's not outside the realm of possibility that they are now complicit in inducing a place or thing - that can't be summoned to appear in front of congress - with the artificial strength necessary to inflate numbers. Maybe Justin Verlander's allegation wouldn't hold up any better in court than Sammy Sosa's "no speaka English" defense. Regardless, the mere chance that could is so incredibly symbolic of the hypocrisy of a league that somewhat frivolously picks and chooses which aspects of their tarnished history are worth celebrating. Altering balls might not affect the outcome of games as much as a subsect of biologically enhanced players, but they are certainly acting in the same vein (pun intended) in terms of compromising the validity of the asterisk-laden record books. 
I don't even think I'm being mildly facetious when I say that was basically poetry in motion. You could literally picture the end result seconds before the potential infertility came to fruition because the ball almost seemed to become suspended in the air as if time were temporarily standing still to build up the anticipation for the inevitable nut shot. As far as completely incidental cup checks go, that was the cinematic version of being down three in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and the bases jacked. As soon as it left his hand you already knew the payoff wasn't going to leave you disappointed, but somehow it ended up being more satisfying than anyone could have possibly imagined. That outcome was no curveball, because watching that floater pitch slowly careen down towards his Scuffy McGee's as if it were in slow motion was like watching a rom-com in which a widely inaccurate changeup and a camera man's testicles were destined to end up eternally tied together forever. I honestly don't how something that worked out so perfectly wasn't scripted, because real life simply isn't supposed to provide such convenient conclusions. Tony might wake up in the middle of the night feeling that one from his cojones to his chest cavity. For the rest of us, however, that off-speed moose-knuckleball hit us directly in the feels and reminded us exactly what it was like to love......seeing invitees deliver ceremonial pitches from the rubber without having a clue as to which observers would be wise to keep their "head" on a swivel. A Former High School Baseball Player Is Suing His Coach For Being A Big Old Bully By Benching Him8/16/2017  TheComeback-A former student at Los Altos High School (Hacienda Heights, CA) has filed a lawsuit against the school district and his former baseball coach, citing repeated benching from games and describing it as “harassment and bullying.” The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reports that 17-year-old Robbie Lopez and his parents are seeking “$150,000 or more” in the lawsuit, claiming that varsity baseball coach Gabriel Lopez (no relation) repeatedly refused to let Robbie play throughout his senior year. The lawsuit claims that Robbie was a starter for three seasons before Gabriel arrived as the new head coach at Los Altos. The family believes the benching began after Robbie’s father, Robert Lopez II, “complained to the district’s athletic director after a disagreement over a fundraising game.” The players that didn’t participate in the fundraising event were then not allowed to practice, according to the lawsuit. And this caused the father to then speak with the school, as it’s illegal in the state of California to require public school students to fundraise in order to participate in school activities. The lawsuit also references an alumni game, where current Los Altos baseball players take on former players from the school in what is basically just a fun scrimmage. Every senior participated in the game, except for Robbie. ------- Full disclosure, I have no idea how the legal team of 17 year old decided that fair compensation for getting benched in competitive high school athletics ranged in the six figures. I'm no lawyer, but I think the misconduct has to be sexual in nature before you go trying to pay off four years of college tuition with the reparations. That said, I can't think of any teenager who is more deserving of $150,000 than the one whose overbearing father raised him to be an entitled asshole despite not having the talent to make his head coach ignore the fact that he was a senior that refused to attend team building events. Seriously, nothing screams "leader" like getting your ass plastered to the pine for running to daddy and responding with litigation. The amount might seem a bit exorbitant. However, Robbie Lopez is probably the first high school athlete to ever have his young career stunted by a newly hired, self righteous coach that didn't like having his authority questioned by a self important second baseman that's not even old enough to buy cigarettes. If the justice system doesn't reward this type of infantile behavior with a payment that is fitting of the price tag on a fully-loaded Mazarati then it might encourage all sorts of disciplinary bullying - such as your standard benching - throughout high-level youth sports! They screw this one up and there's no telling where the line in the dirt gets drawn in terms of testing the depth of your roster via dugout harassment! P.S. This "highlight reel" says all I need to know. He couldn't get one friend/teammate to go out to the diamond and help him look better by comparison? Really speaks to his popularity in the locker room. I don't know about $150K, but I would be fine with the court rewarding this loner $150 out of pity... Houston Astros' Players Are STILL Upset That The Organization Didn't Make A Big Move At The Deadline8/11/2017  YardBarker- Reddick told SiriusXM’s MLB Network Radio on Thursday that Houston players had expected the team to be aggressive at the deadline, but they were left deflated after the team’s only move was to bring in Francisco Liriano in what was viewed as a minor deal.
“I think deep down everybody in that clubhouse knew we were going to make some moves to make us a really great team to a team that put us over the edge, especially with all the moves you see moving around the league,” Reddick said, via Craig Calcaterra of HardballTalk. “It’s nothing against our guys, we are a great team, but any time you can make your team better you feel like should have the opportunity to do that and take full advantage. I think deep down, we all were, I don’t know if you want to say disappointed or upset, I guess we were just kind of down in the dumps because we feel like we had a pretty good shot at getting somebody to help this team get over that hump to where we needed to be.” Ace pitcher Dallas Keuchel had made similar comments on Aug. 1, saying “disappointment is a little bit of an understatement” regarding the lack of a big move. ------- Good news: The incessant whining that has come along with the Houston Astros 2-7 record since the trade deadline has provided their front office a shockingly quick confirmation that they did the right thing in not making any bold moves to improve a (then) 69-win team that apparently lacked confidence internally. Bad news: The Houston Astros are a first place team that has a delicate psyche and is openly displaying easily identifiable characteristics of having a low self-esteem. Seriously, imagine having the second best record in the entire league and a double digit lead on the next best team in your division, and still not believing that you're talented enough to make a run without external help? These guys are supposed to be proud professional athletes, and - if their recent results are any indication - they are let the disappointment of a quiet deadline put a dent in all that they accomplished prior to it. I get that adding pieces as the postseason creeps closer is a way of showing faith in a team that easily outperformed expectations, but can't the same be said about letting it ride with a roster that - at the time - had a win percentage of over .650? I'm not familiar enough with the Houston Astros clubhouse to know what aspects of their team could have been improved by making a short sighted deal to bolster their championship aspirations. However, the fact that their own team's championship aspirations seemed to disappear solely because one wasn't made is a pretty strong indictment of just how unrealistic they were to begin with. You need a lot more than mental fortitude to win a World Series, but that's definitely also a requirement. The continued bitching and moaning from the mouthes of Astros' players seems like a pretty strong sign that that requirement is not currently being met in Houston, and it truly makes me think that were never long for October...no matter who they picked up in July. 
— Benjamin Hochman (@hochman) August 10, 2017 
My advice to the St. Louis Cardinals? Just let it go. Take down the online press release and instantly end this search. It's not that I don't have my own quirky superstitions, but I do have a pretty good feeling that the presence of a ravenous kitten doesn't truly effect the outcome of baseball games. Simply put? Angels are much more helpful in the outfield, and some blood-thirsty feline that thinks it runs the joint doesn't have the widespread appeal of a dolphin that does halftime shows. I know that with one monstrous swing Yadier Molina carved out a spot for that bratty little cat in some weird annex of franchise history. However, the franchise in question needs to trust that it's in a better place living with 12-25 of his/her peers in the two bedroom apartment of an aging single/widowed woman that shamelessly collects kitties from places as strange as a Major League ballpark and immediately claims them as her own. I don't - for one goddamn second - believe that a broad batshit enough to scoop up a stray that just repeatedly gnawed on the hand of a human in front of thousands of people would lose track of said stray shortly thereafter. You don't partake in some asinine act of thievery and then simply lose what you risked it all to take. I know the little bastard had a sweet tooth for strangers, but not even the jaws of life can separate a crazy cat lady from that which she holds most dear. Therefore, I am just going to have to assume that she lied about misplacing it so that the organization would call off the proverbial dogs. No doubt in mind that thing is crapping up a storm in a living room-sized litter box with every other missing cat in a 10-15 mile radius. It would take Ace Ventura about 35 seconds to crack this case, but I hope he doesn't offer his services to help bring back what can only be described as an adorably disguised demon. The Employee Tasked With Chasing Down The St. Louis Cardinals "Rally Cat" Needs A New Summer Gig8/10/2017 
First things first, credit to this poor sap. If I were him I would have been more liable to light my credentials on fire before calmly turning around and walking straight out of the stadium in a blaze of glory than to sprint through the outfield in front of ten of thousands of people in pursuit of an animal that was basically guaranteed to make me look like an asshole once I caught up to it. That probably speaks more to my distrust in house cats than it does to this guy's level of work ethic, but he still deserves a pat on the back and a "good job, good effort" for undertaking a task that should be reserved for single women in their late 30's. I genuinely think I would have fed that little piece of shit to the bleacher creatures by way of drop punt after the second chomp, so I tip my cap to this dude for being wary of PETA's all-seeing eye. I suppose you could say the announcer "predicted" the bite(s), but that doesn't exactly make him Nostradamus. The fact that that inherently pissy kitten reacted poorly to getting picked up would have been the easiest bet of all time. I don't know what this kid gets paid as a member of the field crew, but it damn sure ain't enough to play caretaker to the most bi-polar, contentious pet on the planet. Honestly, "cat catcher" better be included in his contract and that contract better be written in the same blood that he just had drawn, or he chose the wrong side of this risk/reward. There's not enough incentives in the world to justify putting yourself in the position to let a maniacal, self important feline that can't fend for itself make you the butt of the joke on live television. I guess someone had to do it, but I would have been more inclined to turn that kitty into litter than I would be to sacrifice blood, sweat, or tears for it. Maybe the "rally cat" worked it's black magic because Yadier Molina almost immediately hit a go-ahead grand slam, but no man's pride is only worth 1 win out of 162 - no matter how close the divisional race is...
Joe West Interview with USA Today from June 20th:
Biggest Complainer: “It’s got to be Adrian Beltre. Every pitch you call that’s a strike, he says, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!’ I had a game with him recently and the pitch was right down the middle. He tells me, “that ball is outside.’ “I told him, ‘You may be a great ballplayer, but you’re the worst umpire in the league. You stink.’’ (West later clarified to USA TODAY Sports that he and Beltre are on friendly terms).
Seeing as a player would almost certainly be fined for criticizing an umpire publicly, I could definitely see the MLB's justification for suspending an umpire for criticizing a player, even if that criticism read as though it were very much tongue-in-cheek. Remaining consistent in disciplining the talent as well as those that are paid to govern the talent in an unbiased fashion is important. I mean, how else would a league give the loose perception that it's tooootally officiated fairly by people that defffffinitely never experience innate human emotions like favoritism or disdain? Unfortunately, the timing of this punishment makes as much sense as making your sport less entertaining by way of enforcing rules that apparently aren't even important enough to be put in a book. I don't know if the MLB has a super intricate investigation process that's as time-intensive as jailing a white-collar criminal, but a month and a half seems like a hell of a long tome to determine the legitimacy of a word-for-word quote that was published by a relatively trusted news source. That's why I have no choice but to assume that Joe West is owed a nice steak dinner and approximately three days salary from a colleague whose dumbass ejection may have retroactively changed the tone of a humorous anecdote about Adrian Beltre...
I don't know, maybe I'm off-base here, but it seems much more plausible that Joe West's quote from late June was taken out of context in early August after Gerry Davis' authority complex unjustly had the subject of that quote tossed from a game in late July. I wouldn't consider calling a guy (who is known for his sense of humor) "the worst complainer in the league" in the framework of joke to be some sort of gross misconduct, but it definitely starts to look that way when a person you work closely with acts on that reputation by wildly overreacting to something that almost every player does. Maybe the MLB really wanted to double and triple check to make sure that 'USA Today' heard him right, but - if the calendar is any indication - then Joe West is being suspended for a second hand self-fulfilling prophecy. |
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