I was trying to look up a reference to Pedro Martinez dropping Don Zimmer yesterday. A 72 year old man has no business rushing the mound and I think Martinez did as good a job at protecting himself without hurting Zimmer as could be expected. Of course, Martinez could have avoided the whole thing by not plunking Garcia. The New York papers are calling Martinez a coward for knocking down an old man. Of course, they would also be saying that if he punched him, or if he ran to avoid having to do any of that. It was truly a no-win situation. What are you going to do – let this old man clock you, hit him, knock him down or run away? There are no good options there, and of course the New York media is hammering him. He’s culpable for the pitch at the head and is a thug for doing it, but I don’t blame him for knocking down Zimmer. When an old man charges the mound, he deserves what he gets.
While looking for that, I found this horrible story about two Yankees players beating a Fenway groundskeeper. The reason they did – he pumped his fist after the Sox pulled a double play while in the Yankees dugout. Dig this offensive nonapology:
The Yankees denied the players were to blame and demanded an apology from the Red Sox.
”A security incident like this would never be tolerated at Yankee Stadium,” president Randy Levine told The Associated Press. ”Unfortunately, there was an atmosphere of lawlessness that was allowed to be perpetrated all day long. The events of the entire day were disgraceful and shameful, and if it happened at our ballpark, we would apologize, and that’s what the Red Sox should do here.”
Randy Levine is saying a security incident like that wouldn’t be tolerated, when it was his players beating the grounds crew? The Red Sox should apologize that their employee got beaten by two players? Cheering the home team from within the opposing dugout is awfully stupid, but if stupidity was a beating offense the whole Yankee organization would be in hospital beds. This is shameful.
