Fer cryin’ out loud! Robinson bawls at presser
By the Heckler
BASEBALL BIG MOUTH baseball blog
You see where all this pink bat nonsense has gotten us, don’t cha? Now we’ve got grown men like Frank Robinson crying. I hope everyone is real happy about this. Sheesh!
The tough-as-nails Hall-of-Famer, Robinson – the current manager of the Washington Nationals, the same man who swatted 586 career home runs in the days before any talk of enhancements – broke one of the long-standing seldom-spoken rules in the game recently in a post-game press conference: He broke down and cried. In the words of Jay Leno – “No, no! It’s true! You hear about this? You hear about this? Apparently . . .”
Robinson felt tremendous remorse for having to break-out one of the most-notorious cards a manager can play in the course of a given game: pulling a position player in the middle of an inning. True enough, it happens to pitchers all the time – but for fielders? Well, that happens about as often as Ozzie Smith hitting a home run. In other words, maybe two or three times a year, if that. Then again, maybe if this move could do backflips and perfect a bounce throw to first on Astroturf, it’d probably be in the Hall with “The Wizard of Oz”. But the Heckler doesn’t want to start up that whole debate (at least not here, not now). We’re talking Frank Robinson bawling like a school girl, after all.
The man who suffered this ignominy? I mean, the pullin’ (not the cryin’). None other than catcher Matthew LeCroy, formerly of the Minnesota Twins, now putting in time as the third-string catcher for the Nationals. Rumor has it he showed up in Spring Training wearing a “Will Work for Donuts!” sign around his neck, but that remains unconfirmed. Anyway, forgetting the fact that LeCroy hasn’t seen his toes in years, it has almost been that long since LeCroy actually threw out a runner trying to steal – a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by the opposing Astros. Houston took advantage of having the Spanky McFarlane lookalike behind the dish to steal seven – count’em seven – bases and advance two others on LeCroy throwing errors, all in less-than seven innings of play.
Already faced with having his first two catchers down with injuries, Brian Schneider and Wiki Gonzalez, Robinson then pulled LeCroy in favor of former Detroit Tiger pothead Robert Fick (and truly have the tools of ignorance never been more aptly-named than when applied upon a dude like Fick). It was after the game concluded, however, when the fun really began.
“I feel for him, and I hope the fans understand. And I just appreciate him hanging in there as long as he did,” said the emotional Robinson, tears streaming down his cheeks. “It’s not LeCroy’s fault. We know his shortcoming. They took advantage of them today. … I wasn’t trying to embarrass him in any way. It’s just a move that at that time I felt like I had to do for the good of the ballclub. That would have been a very devastating loss for those guys, and I’m just happy they held together out there.”
Incidentally, the Nationals won the game (not that it brightened up their manager any).
For his part, LeCroy wasn’t angry with Robinson at all – far from it. “If my daddy was managing this team, I’m sure he would have done the same thing,” said LeCroy, refusing to answer whether or not that same daddy would have whipped him like the proverbial red-headed stepchild if he ever broke down in front of national media like his manager.
“It was a tough day,” LeCroy added. “They were running all over the place. A couple of no-throws, and a couple of balls I shouldn’t have thrown ended up going into the outfield, which you can’t let that happen, especially when you’re up four or five runs. Ain’t nothing you can do, just try to keep coming back day-in and day-out.
“I’m man enough to take it. I don’t think he should get that emotional about it. Hey, he’s doing his job, just like I would do if I was in his position.”
And that position would be what – cuddling up to Oprah on her couch and letting your true feelings out? Get a grip Frank. It’s only a game. Buy LeCroy a waffle cone and get over it. He already has. Better yet, maybe work harder on stopping LeCroy from stealing seconds at the buffet, and maybe he’d actually be able to then stop a runner from stealing second. Man - then we’d all be better off.
In the words of the immortal Nancy Kerrigan - and noted, fellow public weeper - Why? Why?