Jay Mariotti Wants To Stop All Attempts at Having Fun

Many sportswriters like to point out the problems a sport has seen through years or decades and enlighten the public on how we can fix those problems over time. Jay Mariotti prefers to take one incident and blow it into a huge, massive problem that needs a fix RIGHT NOW. His target this week isn't steroids, minority representation in baseball, or the relative imbalance in salaries for teams...but it's those damn celebrations after a team wins a game dramatically.

You MLB teams will have no fun on Jay Mariotti's watch!

Know how baseball players can be stereotyped as the dumbest of the sports bunch, the ones who generally don't go to college and use their bridge to adulthood to pass gas and watch porn on minor-league bus trips?

I thought that was nearly every single athlete who got stereotyped in this fashion, not just baseball players. Clearly, Jay Mariotti knows better than I do since he is the professional sportswriter and I am just a guy with a working computer and a marginally firm grasp of the English language.

So a player rips a game-winning walkoff hit in May. Is that a good reason for two dozen grown men to rush maniacally from the dugout, bullpen and clubhouse and jump the day's hero?

Yes, it is. After arriving at the park hours before game time, killing time in the clubhouse before the game and playing nine innings (or more) of baseball, it is perfectly fine to celebrate a victory with the 24 other guys you spend your entire summer with traveling around playing baseball for money.

To nitpick, not all of the 24 players come from the dugout since presumably there are a few pitchers left in the bullpen.

I mean, openly maul the guy? It was only a matter of time before one of these moving dog piles resulted in a serious injury.

Even knowing an injury could occur doesn't mean the celebrations should stop. I can roll my ankle playing basketball, does that mean I should quit playing basketball and eat Cheez-Its and yell my opinion on sports at a television? I am not going to bore everyone with a discussion on risk, but everything has a risk to it.

I could take a piss and catch my private parts in the zipper. Does that mean I should go buy an adult diaper and never piss in a toilet?

I based that inevitability on the common-sense ideal that a hopping, tackling, chest-bumping, 5,000-pound scrum should not be engulfing a 6-foot-1, 225-pound first baseman, particularly when he is by far your most productive hitter,

I can count on one hand how many times some bizarre injury like this has occurred in the thousands of baseball, football, and basketball games each year. Gus Frerotte,Ted Ginn Jr, and Bill Gramatica come to mind immediately. That's not a bad ratio of having fun:being injured while having fun.

How about Jay Mariotti shuts up and lets everyone else enjoy sports despite the fact he obviously hates sports? Better yet, how about he just quits writing sports columns completely? Everyone in favor of this say, "yay."

What happened? Oh, he rounded third base, whipped his helmet amid the crowd frenzy in his home ballpark, eyed the delirium that was gathering at the plate, took a mighty leap -- and landed badly on his left ankle as his teammates mobbed him and slapped him on the back,

So it wasn't the actual mauling by his teammates that caused the injury, but Morales jumping up and down. Perhaps this article by Mariotti should encourage professional athletes to no longer jump up in the air because you NEVER FUCKING KNOW WHERE YOU COULD LAND! Perhaps you could land on a small child or even on a ball python which would then squeeze you to death and eat you. YOU DON'T WANT TO BE KILLED BY A JUNGLE SNAKE DO YOU?

He instantly went down in a heap, rolled on his back and lay in pain for 10 minutes before he was hauled off to the hospital. Suddenly, nothing was very angelic about the most exciting victory of the season for a struggling team that plays down the street from Disneyland.

Naturally reasonable human beings (that weren't Angels fans) got a small laugh out of hearing about this, looked up the YouTube video (which was taken down immediately by MLB) and then chalked it up to bad luck. Much like a line drive that hits a pitcher in the face, this a freak injury. We shouldn't ban baseballs and wooden bats should we? YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN SOMEONE COULD GET KILLED! Maybe baseball should be played with whiffle balls and bats, just to be safe.

Of course what happens if a person gets hit with a line drive off a whiffle bat? Those fucking fake huge golf ball-looking things can cause a pretty bad red mark on your skin. It's probably better to just not ever play baseball at all.

So much for another pennant run involving the perennial AL West champions.

Many people know the next day Howie Kendrick also got mobbed at home plate after a game-winning hit and what happened? His teammates were hitting him on the head and then they hit him with so much force they just fucking decapitated him. He's dead now, all because his teammates wanted to have a good time. See what baseball celebrations can do? They rip apart families and tear apart the moral fabric of our society.

Seriously, the next day the Angels again celebrated when Kendrick got a hit and no one got hurt. Just like no one has gotten hurt at 99.9% of the celebrations before that.

Some of baseball's greatest memories have involved celebratory scenes at home plate. But I don't remember Bobby Thomson being hog-pummeled by his New York Giants teammates after his homer won the 1951 National League pennant.

This is just retarded reasoning. I don't think I even want to speak to how stupid it is. So because 60 years ago baseball players didn't all celebrate at home plate there isn't a reason to do it today?

Maybe Chris Chambliss had it right back in 1976, when he didn't bother with the home-plate madness after his home run won a playoff series for the Yankees. Instead, he ran away from hundreds of crazies in New York by rounding third base and charging straight into the dugout. That way, no one gets hurt, and joy doesn't turn to sorrow.

Unfortunately if that person is the winning run, that person has to cross home plate or else the runner can be called out by umpires and game will continue. So as awesome as the idea of not touching home plate seems, it may not be too realistic.

On a weekend when Roy Halladay pitched a perfect game and a teen knuckleballer from Japan made her professional debut on U.S. soil, the talk around baseball, sadly, was about Morales' freak injury and how such silliness can be prevented in the future.

Jay Mariotti just caused the injury "freak," which sort of implies that there isn't much which can be done to prevent it. Who is to say Kendry Morales wouldn't break his foot walking into the dugout by missing a step? Should batters be escorted to the batter's box by a golf cart to prevent walking-related injuries?

(This would be awesome by the way)

I am not a huge fan of the celebrations at home plate, but I also don't believe they are inherently dangerous. I am not a huge Red Sox fan, but I still like the image of David Ortiz (or any other player that isn't playing the Braves at the time) flipping his hat off at home plate after hitting a walk-off home run. It is a sort of goose-bump moment for the fans and is exciting to watch. Of course Jay Mariotti hates the fans, so he would actually prefer they have as bad of a time as possible at a baseball game.

Stop beating up your own teammate after he wins the friggin' game, OK? Celebrate in moderation, you know?

Yes, this could perhaps be a solution, but this is the first and only time a player has gotten hurt during the home plate jumping/mauling celebration. Besides Morales got hurt by landing funny on his foot, not because of the actual celebration.

"It's a lesson for all of us. It's unfortunate,'' Scioscia said. "It was terrible, and it will change the way we celebrate. It's sickening to lose a player the way we lost Kendry.

Whether to immediately ban how his team celebrates is up to each manager, but I really don't think the celebration is "dangerous" as Mariotti so dramatically states in his title to this article.

As if being tested by the baseball gods, the Angels immediately were rushed into another game-winning scenario Sunday. This time, after Howie Kendrick's homer gave them a 9-7 win over Seattle, the traffic jam didn't exist. Kendrick simply crossed home plate without a jump, and when his mates did reach him, the celebration wasn't nearly as frat-boy-rowdy.

While Saturday's celebration reached an "8" on the frat-boy-rowdy scale, the celebration on Sunday only reached a "5" on the frat-boy-rowdy scale. I love measuring things that can't be measured.

The key part about what Kendrick did was that he DIDN'T JUMP, which is exactly what got Morales injured. You can't really have much more of a freak accident than a player jumping up in the air and breaking his foot. This can happen pretty much anytime, during a celebration or jumping for a line drive.

Still, the Angels are straining to reach .500.

The reason the Angels are having a bad year? Excessive celebrating. The Baseball Gods do not approve of a team having fun.

But with no Morales and a troubled pitching staff that has allowed the most runs in the AL, the challenge will be more difficult.

I am a little confused as to how Morales' injury will cause the pitching staff to still pitch poorly, but this entire article is based on the logic of a grouchy alarmist, so I probably shouldn't expect this to make sense.

But to replace Morales' power, it may take owner Arte Moreno to open the bank vault for Scioscia and general manager Tony Reagins. Paul Konerko has had a hot start for a stone-cold, Ozzie-wacko White Sox team but is making $12 million this season. Lance Berkman, who dearly wants out of a losing mess in Houston, makes more at $14.5 million.

I think the AL West is winnable for the Angels without Morales. I really do, but if not, the Angels do have the prospects to get another first baseman.

Carlos Delgado is available but injury-prone.

Let me guess...most of his injuries have occurred during celebrations at home plate?

For now, the Angels will stick with their own and hope for more consistency from the likes of Kendrick, Hideki Matsui, Juan Rivera and Erick Aybar.

You mean the Angels need their hitters to quit underperforming? I would think with or without Morales this needs to happen.

You'd think the Minnesota Twins would be empathizing with memories still fresh of an unfortunate 2002 episode involving Denny Hocking. While celebrating a playoff-series clincher, teammate Jacque Jones stepped on Hocking's middle finger and ravaged the nail. Without Hocking, the Twins lost to the Angels in the AL championship series.

Not Denny Hocking! Please tell me how the Twins got by without their utility infielder who hit .250/.310/.323. The answer? They didn't. The loss of Hocking's +OPS of 70 was too much to recover from for the Twins and they didn't couldn't even make the World Series without him.

Please tell me Jay Mariotti didn't just attribute the Twins loss in the 2002 ALCS to the loss of Denny Hocking to a middle finger injury...because I am pretty sure he just did.

As Angels star Torii Hunter said, recalling his time with the Twins that season: "That wasn't as bad as this. This is bad. Denny was our utility player.

Terrible, terrible comparison by Jay Mariotti. Why does anyone pay him for his opinion on sports?

Yet there was Twins manager Ron Gardenhire, defiantly vowing not to change the way his players react to emotional victories. "Probably 1,000 celebrations over the course of the last five years -- and there's one injury and now you want us to quit," he told reporters. "I don't tell them what to do at home plate. That's just an unfortunate accident.''

It's always sad to see alarmist overreaction and logic collide. Logically, the celebration at home plate is just a celebration where one player has gotten hurt and the alarmist says one player being hurt is a reason to stop doing it. Teams know the risks, I don't think the celebrations are really that dangerous.

Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Corey Hart, who was swarmed by teammates Friday night after his walkoff homer. "I've never heard of anyone breaking their leg. I mean, you might take it into consideration, but it's just a freak thing."

As I have stated several times, a player can get hurt doing pretty much anything. Mike Matheny missed the playoffs a few years ago because he cut his thumb with a hunting knife he had gotten as a present. Sammy Sosa got a back injury from sneezing. Though maybe he was trying to get the syringe in his lower back to avoid detection of his PED use because people were starting to notice the needle marks where he usually injected the PEDs (that would be great if this were true)...but the official story was that he got hurt sneezing. You can't stop freak injuries.

We were frightened Saturday when Cleveland pitcher David Huff, who was plunked in the head by an Alex Rodriguez liner, lay face down on the Yankee Stadium pitcher's mound for six minutes. I'm happy to report there is no sign of neuropsychological damage and that Huff was back in the clubhouse and telling jokes Sunday. But the fact the Morales and Huff stories happened within a matter of hours is cause for pause.

Because there is no similarity in any way between these two injuries and how they occurred? I have no idea what Mariotti means here. The only reason I am pausing is trying to figure out what the hell he means by this sentence.

Maybe the Brewers had it right last September. When Prince Fielder hit a home run, jogged around the bases and neared home plate, his teammates didn't batter him. No, they all fell down.

While falling down, a Brewer's player could pull a back muscle or roll too far back and end up with a neck injury. One of the Brewers could also have accidentally hit his head falling back and got a mild concussions. Is it likely? Not at all, but neither is landing the wrong way on your foot and breaking your leg in a celebration.

Harmless? Absolutely.

Absolutely not. A player can get injured pretending to fall down just as easily as a player can get injured in a mob of his teammates. The celebration of falling down is just as dangerous as a group of men getting together in a circle and jumping up and down.

Kendry Morales suffered a freak injury and there is absolutely nothing inherently dangerous about the celebration teams will have at home plate after an exciting victory. Sure, injuries can occur, but injuries can occur at any point in life. Teams know there is a risk of injury when they celebrate at home plate, but this doesn't mean a team shouldn't still celebrate an exciting moment.