Baseball World Rocked as Yankees’ Closer Caught Spitting
And In Other News: The Sky Is Blue
Anaheim, California – New York Yankees Closer Mariano Rivera was caught in the middle of a controversy in which he was accused of…wait for it…spitting. As natural to baseball players as crotch-grabbing and picking up women, spitting is just a part of the game. Mariano Rivera is as likely to accumulate mucous as the next person, and, because he’s a ballplayer and spitting is what they do, he spat.
Is This The Face of A Spitballer?
But this is the ALCS. Serious business. Despite the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (with the worst name in all of baseball) actually winning the game, fans of LAA needed to make a fuss over something, and it was the salivary glands of a Yankees pitcher that they chose to focus on. Perhaps tiring over blaming the deep pockets of the Yankees ownership and their consequent ability to sign an almost-all-marquee staff, the subject of Monday night’s game would be phlegm.
Um, get a life, folks.
Going into the controversial playoff game, the Yankees led the series 2-0. Game three proved itself to be an 11-inning nail-biter, but the Angels emerged victorious. The Yankees now only had a 2-1 series lead, and the underdogs felt—possibly for the first time—like they had a shot. And then some idiot with a YouTube account decided to make things more interesting.
An unbelievable amount of other YouTube videos showing slow-motion versions of Rivera’s alleged spit-ball, versions including commentary by fans, the actual FOX footage from the game, and so on.
The “damning evidence” shows Rivera looking intently at the ball, then looking towards the plate, then spitting. He then rubbed the ball before throwing his pitch.
Let’s review. A pitcher looked at the baseball he was about to throw it. Then the same pitcher looked towards the target at which he would be throwing the aforementioned baseball. Preferring to pitch without fluid in his mouth—or, perhaps, because it might be a superstitious thing he does before each pitch—the player then discharges any saliva. As he prepares to throw the ball, he rubs it. Maybe he wants to make sure he has a good grip. Such things are important when you’re a fireball-throwing legendary closing pitcher.
Then some clown with a camera-phone and too much free time claims that the pitcher was spitting on the ball, which, in case you didn’t aren’t aware, is a big no-no in baseball.
Mariano Rivera is one of the most feared and respected closers in the game. He doesn’t need to spit on a ball. If he weren’t among the best, he wouldn’t be playing for a team that can buy any player they want. He is now in year 2 of a 3-year, $45 million dollar contract that made him the highest-paid closer in the game when he signed. During the 2008 season, he was chosen to announce the winner of a promotion that offered a diamond engagement ring and proposal in front of 50,000 fans at Yankee Stadium. He also gave the winner tips on married life, as the devout Christian pitcher has been happily with his wife since 1991. That’s like 100 years of marriage in Baseball World, where wives come and go like the tides. He is even the judge in the Yankees’ Clubhouse Kangaroo Court, in which players are fined for various offenses that anyone not on the team can’t—and probably doesn’t want to—know about.
This is not a man who cheats. He doesn’t have to.
After reviewing tapes of the supposed ‘event’, the Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball cleared Rivera of any wrong-doing. Even Angels’ Manager Mike Scioscia said, “There are certainly some guys that might be suspect. Never Mariano…I’d be shocked if there was anything to that.”
Dude didn’t even get upset when he found out that conspiracy theorists were after him “Why would I get mad?” Rivera said. “I mean, I care about what the fans think about me, but if somebody has followed my career for years, that’s a lot of spit.”
Everyone who is not a Yankees fan must accept a few truths: A. They can afford to buy the best in the game, and they do, every single year. B. Money can go a long way towards buying a championship—but not always. C. Even if you can’t stand the Yankees, even if you want to burn Steinbrenner in effigy every day of the year, there are some actually good men—not just good players—on the team. (When did we stop mocking A-Rod for dating Madonna, anyway?)
Crying foul every time a ballplayer shoots some phlegm onto the field is like getting mad at a teenaged boy for stealing his mother’s Victoria’s Secret catalog.
Either way, a man’s gotta get his fluids out.