Baseball Needs A Cleanup
By Ian Haan
As the second half of the season kicks off and the clock ticks toward October, tensions are heating up. As we all saw, David Ortiz damaged his reputation by reacting emotionally to a bad call in his at bat against the Angels Friday night. The call was an inside strike for the out, and it lit Ortiz’s fuse. As Ortiz was right in home plate umpire Matt Hollowell’s face, Sox manager Terry Francona attempted to restrain Big Poppi, who pushed Francona out of the way, continuing his feud. Hollowell ejected Ortiz from the game, and Ortiz went flaming into the dugout. Just when we thought the incident had cooled off, Ortiz started firing bats from the dugout in the direction of two more umpires, Bill Hohn and Mark Carlson. The bats landed within inches of their feet. What does this have to say about baseball now? Well, you can say the game certainly has changed since the "good old days." Temper tantrums such as the one Ortiz displayed in front of the Anaheim fans Friday night are more common then ever.
Need I remind you of Los Angeles Dodgers’ outfielder Milton Bradley and his little incident? Well, back on the 7th of June, home plate umpire Terry Craft warned Bradley not to argue calls from the dugout. Who listens to umpires anyway? Apparently Bradley doesn’t. Bradley began arguing calls once again from the dugout, resulting in an ejection from the game. At that instant, Bradley stormed out of the dugout, ranting and raving about the situation, and then steamed back to the dugout only to empty a bucket of baseballs onto the field and heaving one by the left field warning track. Bradley was handed a four game suspension for this. However, Milton Bradley did not explode in front of the Milwaukee Brewers crowd like Ortiz did in Anaheim. I have a feeling Ortiz could be facing a 10 game suspension, for throwing the bats at the umpires.
Baseball will always be America’s pastime but this doesn’t mean the game won’t continue to evolve. In my opinion, the game is turning more into showing off the power of the big egos, causing incidents like those of Ortiz and Bradley, and hiding the very skilled players underneath it all. Baseball needs some shaking up. Hopefully Major League Baseball’s commissioner Bud Selig will have something meaningful to say about the current situations; and do something to clean things up.
Sources:
www.sperts.net
www.mlb.com
www.redsox.com
www.usatoday.com
