Seems to me that he had every right to crash into Michael Barrett at the plate, and it didn’t look like he committed an act any more aggressive than punching Barrett in the fist with his jaw, so what was the logic in ejecting Pierzynski, much less considering suspension, fine and other disciplinary action?
Maybe I can see ejecting him for his own safety, though that seems plenty lame to me. Was that it? Was he ejected for being a swine in general? For rabble-rousing? For enjoying the brawl? I don’t get the logic of punishing A.J. in any way here.
If you watch the play (starts around 0:21 on that one), Pierzynski lowers his shoulder and chips Barrett on his way to the dugout. That’s when Barrett grabs him.
In itself, a little shoulder bump shouldn’t be enough to get a professional athlete that worked up. But the combination of the collision (which was a perfectly clean play), Pierzynski’s defiant slapping of the plate, and the shoulder bump was enough to set Barret off. Barret was by far the more egregious offender, but Pierzynski wasn’t entirely blameless.
AJ also has a well-deserved reputation as a shit stirrer. It was probably this as much as anything else that got him ejected.
It looks to me like he’s going to get his helmet, the catcher stands up and moves to his left, Pierzynski tries to slip by him by lowering his shoulder, they accidently collide, and the catcher loses it.
He did claim he was going to get his helmet, but Barrett might not have seen where the helmet was, and misread his intentions. Not that I am excusing Barrett’s actions (well, maybe just a little…)
Bingo. It’s a much described thing here on sports radio shows that AJ is a more than just a bit of a jerk. He’s what they refer to as a 3 year man, because after 3 years on a team everyone is sick of him and he gets traded.
It was a matter of time before someone decked him.
Which seems to me like a policy that strives to blame the victim. There are a few plays in baseball that encourage contact, mainly where the fielder (like Barrett) chooses to position himself in the basepath, to which the runner has an absolute right. This is like throwing the runner out on a steal attempt of 2b where the 2Bman refuses to get out of the way and comes up swinging. Why should the baserunner get thrown out for asserting his right to a base? This just seems nuts to me.
If it was just that, you’d be absolutely right. But it didn’t stop at that, and that is why they both got bounced. The ejection was for actions after the play.
If a fielder has the live ball, they also have an absolute right to the basepath, which is why catchers are allowed to blatantly block off the plate by shoring up in the baseline.
The play was clean, it was several seconds later where it got more interesting. I actually beleive that AJ may have just been getting his helmet, but since he’s a jackass, I shan’t lose sleep over it.
Is this discussed somewhere because I’d never seen him before last year’s playoff but took an immediate dislike to him. Everything about him just rubs me wrong and I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard others say the same.
That’s kinda my point: if it had been some respected player, like Derek Jeter, doing the same exact things that Pierzynski did, would he have been ejected? I don’t think so. So it seems to me that Pierzynski’s offense was “doing a lot of shit in years past” which really isn’t much of a reason to eject him there.
Like its been said, more often then not, both players will be ejected if there’s any type of scuffle. For instance, if a hitter charges the mound and starts wailing on the pitcher, they’ll just toss both of them, in order to keep some sense of fairness and balance. The only time I can remember that not happening was Gerald Williams and Pedro Martinez, when Williams was tossed and Martinez wound up pitching a no-hitter into the 9th inning.
And Pierzynski’s rep probably didn’t help matters any, but still I can imagine that if Jeter had a similar incident, he’d be tossed too.