By Beaker
I was watching the baseball highlights while I knitted a Green Lantern costume (I eventually ran out of green yarn) and noticed a pitcher getting tossed out of the game by the home plate umpire during the Yankees-Orioles game. The pitcher was Baltimore’s Daniel Cabrera.
You see, earlier in the game Alex “Mad-Rod” Rodriguez smacked a dinger off Cabrera. On his next journey to the plate, Cabrera zinged him with an inside pitch. As many are aware, it’s tradition to send a message to a hitter that’s made you his gimp during a game – or even over a long career. We’ve all seen the caption, “Bruce Wayne is 20 for 32 lifetime against Clark Kent.” That sort of stuff stays with you deep within your mind. Even if you don’t intentionally aim to hit a batter there’s a little part of your body that acts like a rogue state.
However, the thing I don’t get in this particular incident is this: The O’s were up 6-1 with a runner on second. Given New York’s ability to score runs in late innings one would think you just don’t fill bases up with them. A-Rod gets on and the next hitter (in this case porn heart-throb Jason Giambi) can easily make the game 6-4 in the eighth.
Umpire Chad Fairchild was pretty confident in what he believed to be a “high and inside” retribution pitch. But did he consider the situation? I’ll let Cabrera plead his case. “I was surprised because the game was 6-1, nobody out, runner is at second,” Cabrera said. “How am I going to put somebody on base?” Yankees manager Joe Girardi had this philosophical interpretaion: “I don’t know. You never know.” Did you know? Did my mother know? Did God know? Does he exist? And why am I assuming He’s a man? He’s The Man but what if we’re wrong and he’s The Woman? Huh? Huh? He added. Italics mine. “Daniel Cabrera is wild (all that jacuzzi water does that to a man), but I don’t like it. He was down in the zone all night tonight and you just don’t like it (no doubt he feels for Cabrera’s cheap mechanics). It’s happened a few times with this guy, Daniel Cabrera. We know at times he has some control issues but it’s just awful dangerous when you’re up there.”
So. Was Danger Daniel a victim of control problems, was he acting deliberately or did he just act selfishly?
I don’t know.
