Baseballhead:
What They Meant to Say

Michael Cox

Well, slap my hiney and call me Maude, we're giving birth to another big giant Baseballhead, where you may already be noticing the large amount of sugar I've recently ingested.

It's been a week of odds 'n' ends in MLB, as we near the end of All-Star voting and settle into the realization that the Twins aren't going to finish dead last this season. Fortunately, however (and just how many times does one get to say "fortunately, however"?), there has been no shortage of talking heads in baseball. Too many if you ask me, but you dinna.

And in the spirit of those Jim Rome ads (which serve mainly to illustrate the fine, fine line between "brutally honest" and "asking for a knuckle sandwich"), we're going to translate what transpired this past week (or so), and present to you a little diversion we like to call, "What They Meant to Say."

First, we have the nincomp- er, incomparable Commissioner Bud Selig, who is making his regularly-scheduled threat on behalf of those teams needing new ballparks. With nowhere left to move, the unbalanced brains behind the unbalanced schedule now brings us "contraction," wherein the owners wave their magic want and poof, the Twins and Phillies disappear. Oops. I mean the Expos and Marlins. Or whoever is sucking this week.

What Selig said: "The economic situation is so pervasive and the problems are so pervasive that everything will come under consideration."

What he meant to say: "I'd really rather create a revenue fund that would allow us to actually do some intelligent marketing instead of that stupid fan-with-a-glove ad, but I heard Steinbrenner sleeps with a gun."

The word "umpire" became synonymous with "lawsuit" this week (barely surpassing the old synonym, "old and chubby"), with two separate legal actions filed. In the first, both the MLB owners and the umps who quit in 1999 are suing over an arbitrator's ruling that some of the ousted arbiters should be hired back -- the umps want 'em all back; the owners don't want any. (MLB pitchers considered suing to have Eric Gregg reinstated, but then were distracted by a pan of meatloaf.)

Then, some of the current umps who were (and apparently are still) loyal to former union boss Richie Phillips sued the new umpires' union, claiming they are unfairly paying union dues.

What the former umps' lawyer said: "The arbitrator made distinctions between junior umpires and senior umpires, and between American League umpires and National League umpires, that were arbitrary..."

What he meant to say: "Okay, so as negotiation tactics go, submitting signed resignations was on a Homer Simpson level of stupid. But is it too much to hope that with enough attempts, we might find that one judge who's just as senile as Richie Phillips?"

Selig once again got his name in the news when he decided to appoint "honorary" presidents to represent the American and National Leagues (remember them?). Jackie Autry, who once was owner of the Angels after husband Gene died, and Bill Giles, who owns the Phillies, will get to perform such important tasks as reading the names of the All-Star teams and taking up seats at important playoff games which would otherwise be filled with actual fans.

What Selig said: Like this was important enough for a quote.

What he meant to say: "After much toil, I believe I have selected the most ineffectual leaders in the world today. You know what the Queen of England does these days? These 'league presidents' will make her look like a third-world military junta."

Second place in June is just not good enough for the city of New York, where they sincerely believed they had reclaimed their birthright with the Yanks' championship run. As it always does, the pressure got to George Steinbrenner this week, and like 1999's declaration that Hideki Irabu was a "fat toad," and last season's tirade at the bullpen's expense, 2001 saw Da Boss ragging on his hitters. (Am I the only one who pictures him performing these outbursts as the Seinfeld character?)

What Steinbrenner said: "There've been a lot of errors by Jeter and Scott Brosius.

What he meant to say: "All right, I understand Jeter might have been a tad rusty after his injury, but I've always suspected that I could play better than Brosius, and one day I'm gonna prove it. And by the way, I do sleep with a gun."

Oooooo, John "Scooby Doo" Rocker had a bad week, first with a bar patron claiming the pitcher threatened him, then with the Blue Jays' Raul Mondesi claiming the pitcher threatened him. While I'd probably give Rocker the benefit of the doubt at the bar, there did happen to be several TV cameras pointed at Rocker when he came on the field after Mondesi.

What bar patron Ali Tsaoys said: "I extend a hand out for a shake. We shake hands. He walks by and I yell out, 'Let's go Yankees' ... I turn around and in the corner of my eye, I see him coming after me."

What he meant to say: "Maybe chanting 'Rocker Sucks' to his face isn't the best idea in the world! I hear the umpires have a good lawyer..."

What Teammate Chipper Jones said: (about the Mondesi incident) "It would have been real harmless, if someone who will remain nameless, from the bullpen, had minded his own business."

What he meant to say: "Dumbass."

about the author

When he said, "we don't accept tips here at Strikethree.com," Michael Cox meant to say," send snacks." Address your Ho-Ho's to mc@strikethree.com.