What Do You Expect for $7 Mil? Hustle? Are You Kidding Me? Hustle is for Chumps.
Florida shortstop Hanley Ramirez booted a blooper into the left field corner yesterday, and then ambled after it while three Philadelphia runners were definitely not ambling around the basepath. (Video here.)
Ramirez’s manager, Fredi Gonzalez yanked him, and chewed him out in the dugout. Unbelievably, Ramirez is fuming. He refuses to admit he was dogging it, and refuses to apologize. He takes the “N wrongs make a right” approach, claiming that since other players don’t apologize for not running out grounders, why should he apologize? Great to see your “star” players (Ramirez led the league in batting last year) lead by example.
What I wouldn’t pay to have seen Leo Durocher come back to life, and greet Ramirez when he came back to the dugout–if he even waited for Ramirez to get to the dugout. Leo would have unscrewed Ramirez’s head. I leave it to your imagination as to what Leo would have done next. Probably something like this (forward to about the 1:08 mark). (WARNING! Extreme language. And I mean extreme.)
Billy Martin, too. That would be good.
How would Sweet Lou have handled that situation?
HR fouled one off his ankle in has last at bat in that game. He limped a bit thereafter.
The ball he attempted to catch might’ve hit that ankle.
HR should’ve told his manager that he couldn’t continue on. Perhaps HR didn’t realize the extent of his limts until he chased the fly ball. I don’t think he was jaking it.
After getting yanked, HR’s comments about his manager and team went overboard.
Comment by Bugs — May 18, 2010 @ 8:19 pm
He was jaking it. He was running fine while he was trying to catch the ball. And he was jogging without a trace of a limp.
I looked over the above hyper-linked video.
He didn’t run well to first after the foul off of him.
Bobby Valentine said that he might’ve further aggravated the condition if the fly ball he booted made contact with the same area. If so, it explains his attempt at a normal go at it, followed by the realization that it was difficult to go all out. If the booted ball didn’t hit the same area, there’s still the possibility that the condition acted up on him after attempting a normal go at it.
Was he babying it? Quite possibly.
He was definitely out of line in how he carried on afterwards.
According to at least one report, he hasn’t gone for treatment.
Comment by Bugs — May 18, 2010 @ 11:33 pm
I knew when we started paying professional athletes what college professors get paid it would start causing problems! 😉
Comment by Charles — May 19, 2010 @ 5:33 pm