The National's four-game set over the weekend wasn’t too notable aside from the home team requiring late game heroics just to even the series. The big controversy came Saturday evening when first year manager Matt Williams made the rookie move by benching Bryce Harper after a groundout for "lack of hustle."
Here's the play that yanked on Williams' jock strap.
The story was momentarily overshadowed by the Wizards actually winning a playoff game (!), but my WFB blogging colleague Larry O’Connor decided to re-litigate William’s autocratic managing decision this morning on WMAL.
We hear this complaint at least once a season. Critics lament the "corrosion" of today's baseball by talking about how "it’s a honor to play the game, they are paid handsomely to play it, they rob the fans when they don’t play full speed, blah, de blah, de blah."
Are we done yet?
The cherry blossoms have just fallen, Washington. Contrary to what Dan Synder and the Redskins P.R. department have brainwashed this region into believing, championships are never won in April. And this is our franchise player we're talking about, a kid who’s been the paradigm of the perfect baseball player since I was on deck for dizzy bat.
In fact, Harper has been the exact ambassador for the "right way to play the game" that the Statler and Waldorf’s have been belly aching for. How soon do we forget Saturday's benching was not two days removed from Harper injuring himself, and just a few weeks from his opening-day meeting with Eric Young's knee?
Here is Bryce last May, properly "hustling" into the left field wall in Chavez Ravine. I'm shocked Dodgers fans didn't throw garbage at him as he laid lifeless on the turf.
The guy WMAL should instead pelt with moldy Dodger dogs for no hustle is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Harper's home state's senator. Reid's too busy collecting that Koch money to do much of anything in the Senate. In addition to co-opting the Nationals as his "favorite team" because the game's best young player happens to be from Nevada, he's ripped off the president's trademark "Sports Fan in Chief" strategy. While "Sports Fan in Chief" is one of the few things Obama is actually good at, Reid as "Sports Majority Leader in Chief" comes off more as a one-way bromance.
Harper helped him fully commit to the Nats after years of cheering for the Orioles, whom he still supports.
Harry Reid still supports the Orioles for God's sake.
The only guy scuzzier than Tom Steyer is Peter Angelos. And you want to know who else was a Orioles fan?
Communism: the official political philosophy of your Baltimore Orioles!
Does Harper's jogging send a bad message to the youth? The fellas must have missed this gem.
The only thing Bartolo Colon is teaching America's youngsters is how to hustle a company out of $20 million while snacking on Twinkies.
