2007 Season, Matthias, Toronto Blue Jays

Mine!

by

Mine!

Johnny Mac

Here’s the deal. Two out, runners on 1st and 2nd. A pop up is hit to 3rd. A-Rod (who was on 1st) rounds second and on his way to third yells “mine” to Clark. Howie thinks its SS McDonald, backs off and lets it drop.

 

Going to break, the useless play by play man throws this out there:

Did he say something when going by Howie Clark? It sure appears so!

Frankly, I’m getting a little sick and tired of all the whining of late in Toronto. The announcers are claiming bush league, Gibson’s is jawing at A-Rod, most likely telling him he’s gonna get Lillyed. The Jays bench is staring A-Rod down, the fans bitch and moan of their way to their cars. Give me a break, this is baseball. A non-legitimate run according to the booth. Did A-Rod break a rule by calling out a word?

I simply cannot equate a player yelling “mine!” vs a dirty slide, beaning somebody, etc. I’m sure this will be all the rage throughtout the Canadian TV markets and the holy grail of homer crap, the Fan 590 radio. I can’t wait for the typical Gibbons bitching, JP claiming this is why they won’t win the division, and the “witty” jokes such as A-Rod yelling mine at a strip club.

Matthias Koster
Written By

has written for mopupduty.com since 2006. Follow Matthias on Twitter, Facebook and Google +

  • Wow you didn’t waste any time posting this one. Would you be singing a different tune if A-Rod yelled “mine” on Andy Marte and he dropped the ball, causing the Indians to lose the Wild Card to the Jays? It is bush because it is unsportsmanlike. A-Rod is probably going through a shame spiral right now and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

    Gotta agree with you on the useless colour guy. During a moment of dead air all I could hear was him giggling like a school girl over a few Kyle Farnsworth hecklers.

  • Unsportsmanlike? This is pro-ball. I don’t want to make any Barkley comps but you do what it takes to win on the field. Hell, if I’m getting $25 mil a year, I might yell mine here or there if it helps the club. Was Ty Cobb “sportsmanlike” when he sharpend his spikes. Nope, baseball fans love that aspect anyways. Perry cheats every way to the sun, is loved by the fans as crafty, “that old guy”, HOF, etc. But when a guy yells mine it hits the fans as unsportsmanlike?

  • I say Perry is unsportsmanlike. The sliding is part of the game and there is a level of skill involved in that. I would like to think that at the MLB level you let your skills dictate whether you win a ballgame, not whether you can trick a career minor leaguer into dropping a ball.

  • From Buster Olney:

    I’ve never heard of fielders complaining about a baserunner yelling at them while they’re trying to catch a pop-up; I know you don’t see it. And in this case, you could understand Clark might be more vulnerable to this kind of thing — he was just called up, he hasn’t played in the big leagues alongside McDonald and probably doesn’t know his voice. On the other hand, you see baserunners trying to distract infielders all the time when they’re fielding ground balls, working to obstruct their line of vision or their timing. It does jump out at you when McDonald, a veteran player who is not a star but is respected for his professionalism, reacts the way that he did; if McDonald thinks A-Rod crossed some sort of line, well, some line probably was crossed. Matt Stairs had a strong reaction, too.

    This is not the last we will hear about this, because the Blue Jays are a team that tends to keep score on stuff like this. Somewhere down the road, you can bet that A-Rod is probably going to have a fastball bounced off his rib cage for this transgression.

  • Not surprising…A-Rod is a huge scumbag and always has been. P.S. sliding four feet away from second to take out the shortstop is cheating too…it’s even in the rule book.

  • Speaking of the rule book:
    Rule 7.08(b) says: “Any runner is out when he intentionally interferes with a thrown ball; or hinders a fielder attempting to make a play on a batted ball.”

    He hindered Howie Clark intentionally (even if A-Rod claims he didn’t know what his intentions were – bollocks) so the runner should have been called out on the play.

  • With 7.08, slowing up to block a fielders view would qualify as “hindering”. Jays fans everywhere are throwing that one out.

    Let’s be honest, 4 games under and 12 games back before June… At least blue bird fans have something to talk about…

  • touché

  • My boy Jeff Blair @ the Globe says it best:

    Rodriguez wouldn’t have had the stones to try it if Glaus was at third base, out of fear as much as anything else. And that is the thing that whispers ‘coward’ as much as anything else.

    “No,” Glaus responded Thursday when asked if that would have happened with him in the field. “No, it wouldn’t.”

    The bottom line is that Rodriguez showed a lack of respect for Clark, a journeyman player, and wouldn’t have done so to Glaus, who likely would have immediately decked him.

  • These guys have to rally behind something when their 10+ games out….

    Would he have done it against Glaus. Maybe he would have, if Glaus was just called up and didn’t know Johnny Mac’s voice.

  • 5 games out of a wild card 🙂

  • I hate to flog a dead horse (actually I love to) but…. this from Joe Morgan:

    Joe Morgan: The real reason is money. Public, players alike have been jealous that he got that big contract. He’s been a target since that happened. I’ve stated before that it wasn’t out of line what he did. We’ve seen runners hesitate when there’s a grounder in front of them to distract the fielder. We have so many things that are more obvious than what A-Rod did. I said on the air the other day – if Eckstein had made that play, everyone would have said what a smart play. It was a bad play by the third baseman, he should have caught that ball.

    True that. If Eckstein did it we would have been giving him props all day long.

  • Yeah, I heard that during the Yankees broadcast. You changing your tune now?

  • Hell no. If A-Rod does it he is a dirty bitch. If Eckstein does it…. super stud. Eckstein wouldn’t do it though because he has too much class 🙂