There’s No Crying In Baseball!
March 10th, 2008, 1:02 pm · Post a Comment · posted by patrickdonohue
Two baseball posts in less a month? I know, not like me at all, but I just couldn’t resist this story.
New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi is peeved at Tampa Bay Devil Rays reserve second baseman Elliot Johnson for running over Yankees catcher Fransisco Cervelli in a spring training game yesterday, breaking the 22-year-old’s wrist in the process.
Quoting New York Newsday:
“I think it’s uncalled for,” a visibly angry Girardi, a former catcher, said minutes after Elliot Johnson knocked Cervelli out of the Rays’ 4-1 exhibition win at Legends Field. “It’s spring training. You’re going to get people hurt. That’s what we got. We got Cervelli hurt. I’m all for playing hard, but I don’t think it’s the time when you run over a catcher.”
You know what I say to Girardi and a lesser extent to Cervelli (who had no problem with the play when asked by reporters)? Tough. If you don’t want to play the game within the spectrum of the rules, don’t field a team.
Every year guys come into spring training and NFL training camps fighting for a spot on a roster and will do whatever it takes to make the team. If that means going 100 percent during a 75 percent drill against an all-pro tackle or going headlong into a catcher at a play at home plate. The 24-year-old Johnson was giving it his all and trying to make that roster and make a living. If Girardi doesn’t like it, I suggest he find another line of work.
That being said, I do think that some of Girardi’s outrage was posturing. Appearing angrier than he was to stick up for his guy but my guess is, after seeing Girardi play for a good chunk of his career, that if Elliot Johnson was his guy, he would have gotten a pat on the rear for giving it everything he he had.
This likely isn’t the end of this story and Elliot Johnson will likely have one coming between his shoulder blades the next time these two teams play but with all the press this kid got today, I think that sting of that fastball between his numbers will have been well worth it. Welcome to the bigs.
