Before we discuss how a guy can throw 16 pitches on a broken leg, let’s revisit an endless and tired discussion that will be happening after we’re all dead, shall we?
Rob Manfred spoke before Game 1 of the World Series. What emerged was a bit of nonsense mixed with some sound thinking, which made it better than most Rob Manfred press conferences. The sound:
Manfred says MLB will not pressure the Braves to change their name or stop the Chop.
"It's important to understand we have 30 markets around the country," Manfred said before Game 1 between the Braves and Astros on Tuesday evening. "They're not all the same. The Braves have done a phenomenal job with the Native American community."
Manfred said the Native American community in the Atlanta region "is wholly supportive of the Braves program, including the chop. For me, that's the end of the story."
If we take the commissioner at his word, then OK. Let it be. Twenty years ago, when the chant and chop first made news, it came out that Native Americans in North Carolina made the foam-rubber fingers fans used in conjunction with the Chop. That put things in perspective for me. But the topic remains evergreen.
The whole point, IMO: Context and intent. What do the supposed insensitive perpetrators intend with their supposedly insensitive acts? Do the Atlanta fans chop because they intend to slur, offend and otherwise make sport of Native Americans?
In the context of sport, does the Chop demean Native Americans? Or celebrate them?
I’m never going to make assumptions about another person’s race. If that person says he’s offended by statues of Confederate soldiers or statesmen, who am I to disregard that?
In this case, though, Manfred said the Braves/Native American community relationship in Atlanta is good. No NA folks are denying that. It seems to me an issue revived by media seeking something to write/talk about, not by any genuine local concern.
Uh, Doc, you’re writing about it.
Guilty.
The Chop is overcooked and boring. Twenty years of the chant. Ugh. That’s its biggest affront.
As the dad of a daughter with a disability, I cringe when in 2021 I hear someone use the word “Mongoloid’’ in reference to Jillian. I mean WTF. This person must still be living in a cave. But if I judge the intent not to be malicious, I remind the person that that term hasn’t been used for, oh, 75 years. And I let it slide.
Moving right along. . .
Manfred was asked about length of games, which now average 3 hours, 10 minutes, up 3 minutes from just last year.
“The length of game is a funny number for me,’’ Manfred said. “I will say this: We are at a point with time to make every effort to put the best baseball on the field for the fans.’’
What? It’s funny? Like funny ha-ha? Do we amuse you?
It’s not funny, my friend. The postseason games are edging toward 4 hours. They start a little after 8, they end after midnight, Eastern. Have fun watching four innings, kids.
What does his answer mean? “Make every effort to put the best baseball on the field.’’ That’s really great, Rob. Thank you.
"We have a fan base that is diverse with different points of view. We'd like to keep the focus on the field."
That was the commish’s response to a question about MLB’s decision to move the All Star Game from Atlanta, due to voting rights issues. I’m confused.
Is punishing Atlanta for political reasons the same as keeping the focus on the field?
And we haven’t even talked about the new CBA which by all accounts is going nowhere.
Now, then. . .
CHARLIE MORTON’S RIGHT LEG WAS BROKEN by a line drive off the bat of Houston’s Yuli Gurriel. ESPN.com:
At first, Morton didn't look particularly wounded by the 96 mph fastball that Yuli Gurriel, the American League batting champion, ricocheted off Morton, bouncing to Freeman for an easy out. Morton acted like it was nothing. He struck out Chas McCormick on four pitches. He threw six more to Martin Maldonado, occasionally grimacing but perhaps no more than in an average Charlie Morton start, during which his faces are regularly amusing.
Between innings, an X-ray machine in the stadium snapped an image of Morton's leg, and the diagnosis was: no break. Maybe this was his best chance at a title. Discomfort wasn't going to stop him from returning.
So back he came for the third inning, when he threw six pitches and caught Altuve staring at a curveball for the second time, only after this one he pirouetted away, a grimace creasing his face, and avoided landing on a ginger leg that 30 minutes, 39 seconds earlier had been ambushed by Gurriel's batted ball.
"It's incredible that he even thought of going out there, and I bet you it was so A.J. could have some more time to get ready," d'Arnaud said of A.J. Minter, the reliever who spelled Morton with a season-high 2⅔ innings. "He sacrificed himself."
Well.
Larry Wilson (lookimup, kids) played with two broken wrists. Jack Youngblood and Terrell Owens played on a broken leg. But these were football players. Pain is implied in the contracts they signed.
Morton’s right leg is the one he plants on.
It happened too late in the day Tuesday to have any medical details or explanations, but you don’t need a doctor to imagine the pain involved. Question: You ever play through an injury like that? At any level? Once, I wrestled in a high school Christmas tournament with a torn tendon in my right middle finger. Given that wrestling involves more than a little grabbing, it wasn’t fun. My finger was splinted up for a month after that. But a freaking broken leg?
Do tell.
STICK TO SPORTS. . . Nobody likes paying $3.29 a gallon for gas, but could we stop blaming Biden for it? It’s his problem. Not his fault. Supply and demand. We didn’t go anywhere last winter, pre-vax, at the height of the virus. Low demand, high supply, low prices. It’s the opposite now. That has nothing to do with this president or any president. It’s simple economics.
We’ve been through it before, we’ll go through it again. No matter which person/party is in charge.
YAHOO’S DAN WETZEL MAKES THE POINT better than I did, re the Brady Ball:
This wasn’t about money, this was about an experience. This wasn’t about squeezing every last dime out of something, it was appreciating how much he was unexpectedly given.
So don’t hate on Byron Kennedy for being generous after getting lucky that Mike Evans didn’t know the significance of what he was handing out. Don’t call him a fool.
Maybe consider that he’s the one who actually has it all figured out.
Amen, brudda.
It’d be nice, revolutionary even, if we all stopped worshipping stuff, if only temporarily. Stuff is no match for experiences. It can’t compete with friendship, generosity, charity and contentment. When you get old and gray and you’re feeling alone, what are you going to do? Look at all your stuff? Have fun with that.
The flip side is nothing but pure cynicism. The Ringer suggests the Brady Ball Guy “gave it away with less thought than I put into weekly fantasy football lineup changes, out of a sense of imagined friendship with an enormously wealthy superstar who will never remember his name.''
Don’t we have enough pure cynicism in our lives already?
BECAUSE TV IS MY LIFE. . . HBO’s Succession has soared to the top of the Must See list. Great writing and story lines. The casting is perfect. I’ve never seen a show where everyone involved is a complete a------, yet you find yourself rooting for someone, anyway. The Ringer is now running wrap-ups weekly, of each episode. Must read.
And You is back.
Man is it great to be alive and watching TV, or what?
TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . I don't know what's better, the tune or the sweaters. They're both, you know, groovy.
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