The Dord of Darien

The Wrath of Klapisch

Have you heard the one about the Mets closer who’s on trial for assaulting his girlfriend’s father? Crazy K-Rod crazily punched a 53-year old man in his crazy mouth, and Bob Klapisch is on the scene, bringing the crazy to a new level with a crazy article entitled

Mets organization shows a lack of backbone

in which he has apparently forgotten that there are things like "laws" and "contracts" and "unions" standing in the way of his desire for vengeance.

Only the most naïve among us believed the Mets would finish their season in quiet desperation.

Yeah, pretty much only idiots ever expect the Mets not to get even funnier. And thanks for the diaeresis — I appreciate that.

Instead, Francisco Rodriguez spent Wednesday night in jail after allegedly pummeling his girlfriend’s father at Citi Field, exposing every last flaw of a team that’s missing a backbone.

The Mets have given 388 PA to Jeff Francoeur, who is extremely terrible at baseball. That is a flaw that K-Rod punching out an old guy did not expose.

I mean, just sayin’.

What was more outrageous: that K-Rod would reportedly punch a 53-year-old man in the face in full view of Mets’ family members — including children — or that not one of the reliever’s teammates had the guts to renounce such behavior?

I’m going to go with the punching, personally, since that was pretty goddamn outrageous. The dudes who didn’t want to talk to the media about it? Pretty non-outrageous.

The Mets were probably taking their cue from the owner, Jeff Wilpon, who should’ve made it his business to stand in the middle of the clubhouse and say thugs don’t work for the Mets – they get bounced out of town.

Yes, Jeff Wilpon should do that. Constantly. He should spend all of his time standing in the exact centre of the clubhouse and screaming at everybody who walks in the door that, hey, if you’re a thug, get the fuck out. The Mets would be a better team if they kept Wilpon distracted with shit like that, so he wasn’t making dumb decisions all the damn time.

Also, don’t the Mets have an ace currently being sued for rape? Oh. Yes they do. It’s kind of starting to look like thugs do work for the Mets.

Wilpon hid behind his word-processor, releasing a statement in which he said the Mets were "disappointed" by the incident, which "they take very seriously."

Asshole. Only one "very?" You clearly aren’t taking this seriously enough, Wilpon. The least you could have done was type it in all-caps.

Sure they do. The Mets suspended Rodriguez for all of two days, one of which he was already behind bars. But it gets better: Jerry Manuel said he would’ve gladly used K-Rod in Thursday afternoon’s game, had only the police played along and released him earlier.

Jerry Manuel’s job is to win baseball games, Sue-Ann, not to travel around the world fighting crime. K-Rod is the only reliever he has who doesn’t completely blow (Pedro Feliciano has been crazy lucky on home runs, which makes him look better than he really is), and his absence forced Manuel to use rape camp super-champ Santana for nine innings if he wanted a shot at closing that game out. So, yeah, would have been nice to have a decent reliever around.

Had Manuel bothered to think through his answer, he would’ve realized Rodriguez was in no position to pitch in a major league game, not after the trauma of being handcuffed, incarcerated and marched in front of a judge, all in a 12-hour span.

This reminds me of last year, when Miguel Cabrera clearly was in no condition to play baseball following his incarceration for drunkenness and alleged domestic violence. In fact, it’s the exact same claim! Which is hilarious, since Cabrera followed up with a monster offensive performance during which he almost single-handedly kept the Tigers in the game. He was worth .176 WPA to the Tigers that game.

So, yeah. Fuck that noise. Clearly broken and useless like a fragile little fairy.

Secondly, Manuel should’ve said that no Met deserves to wear the uniform after such a brutal assault.

Yeah, that seems like a good idea. That wouldn’t get the MLBPA up his ass at all. And it certainly wouldn’t cause any tension when Rodriguez returns.

The Mets shouldn’t go anywhere near Rodriguez until they know if he’s going to jail – having been charged with a Class A misdemeanor, he faces up to a year in prison.

He’s not going to jail. He has way too much money to go to jail for a misdemeanor. Worst-case scenario: he plea-bargains down to probation and a fine. Most likely scenario: he gives the dude a fat stack of cash.

At the very least, Rodriguez needs professional help before he resumes his career.

Alternative hypothesis: Rodriguez can get professional help while resuming his career. Just like Cabrera did.

That over-the-top personality is well known in the big leagues; Rodriguez’s reputation was damaged even before joining the Mets.

Clause 1 and clause 2 of that sentence are unrelated. Not the best use you could put that semicolon to.

On the eve of the 2008 All-Star Game at the Stadium, Mariano Rivera ordered clubhouse attendants to keep K-Rod’s locker as far away as possible. The Yankee closer, a deeply religious man, decided he couldn’t stand even one night of K-Rod’s excesses.

So one dude in baseball doesn’t like him? Gosh-all-get-out, that must be why Jeff Kent only played in the majors for three months: too many relief pitchers didn’t want their lockers near his at All-Star Games.

The Mets themselves were dropping hints about Rodriguez’s volatility. Carlos Beltran said the reliever, "has a temper."

Maybe I’m just jaded from so many years of the actually-crazy Carlos Zambrano. Does that really seem like the powerful accusation he’s playing it up as?

David Wright characterized him as "very fiery, very emotional."

Yeah, well, he’s hispanic. That’s the bog-standard characterisation of hispanic players.

Insiders say K-Rod exhibits wild mood swings: from good-teammate civility to a rage that makes it uncomfortable, if not unsafe, to be around him.

Thank god we have insiders to tell us these things, since we never could have determined it from his antics on the mound.

It’s hard to believe Rodriguez won’t be made an example of by the judicial system, and then by the commissioner’s office.

No it isn’t, due to those pesky "laws" and "unions" I talked about earlier. The judicial system doesn’t have the option of making much of an example of him; they can’t send him to the chair whether you’d like them to or not. And the commissioner’s office? Yeah, with the CBA coming due soon, this is the exact time Bud is going to want to pick a fight with the MLBPA.

If Wilpon and Manuel don’t have the stomach for this fight, someone else will do the dirty work for them. K-Rod may do time, but this much is certain: He’ll return to a clubhouse full of nice guys, not one of whom is a leader.

Leaders put politics above winning. They don’t care about their teammates at all, and never allow any friendships or mutual interest to mitigate their rage over anything that pisses reporters off. The Mets don’t have anybody like that because they’re gutless fuckfaces.

David Wright? He gets the most TV face time, but he’s a watered-down version of the ’80s-era Keith Hernandez.

David Wright’s better than Keith Hernandez. At baseball, I mean. I don’t really have any grounds for judging his watered-downness in regards to hating his teammates, but I do suspect Keith Hernandez would punch you in the fucking face for zinging him like that.

Beltran is the Mets’ most talented player, but he’s as non-confrontational as Wright.

You know what made that 2002 Giants team so good? The way Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds were constantly fucking fighting. That really helped them take it to the next level. It’s why the Cubs appreciated Carlos Zambrano flipping out on Derrek Lee for not diving after a single earlier this season.

Jose Reyes is just trying to stay healthy.

Choker. Doesn’t he realise that being righteously angry is far more important than being healthy enough that you can actually play baseball?

And what about Manuel? He’s just a short-timer with no credibility in the room, on his way to getting fired.

This describes all modern baseball managers. So: yes.

That, in part, is why Rodriguez went off on a family member on Wednesday, because somewhere in his consciousness he knew he could get away with it.

Also maybe it’s because the dude was ragging on him for pretty much no reason, and then started screaming at his mother. But, yeah, probably it was just because he knew Carlos Beltran wouldn’t be too angry with him. I’d punch old dudes in the face all day long if I thought Beltran would let me off the hook for it.

At no time did K-Rod stop to think, "These are my teammates’ wives, their children, they shouldn’t have to witness this."

Pretty sure that stopping to think doesn’t play a part in the decision to punch an old dude in the face. Remember when Pedro Martinez kicked Don Zimmer’s ass? I doubt Pedro was thinking "this is the whole world, and it’ll be super badass when they witness this!"

That deterrent should’ve stopped K-Rod, had he been more self-aware.

Can be tough to be "more self-aware" when you’re crazy insane to begin with, and you’re already pissed off, and some fucking guy you only put up with so you can get some tail starts riding your ass about nothing, and then that guy goes after your mother. But you’re right — K-Rod should have had the same level of cool uninvolvement as some asshole writing a self-righteous whine piece about him.

Rodriguez’s rage comes from the same place that makes him fearless in the ninth inning.

Yes: his crazy head.

Still, his sense of entitlement has to be reined in: He isn’t the closer he thinks he is, or the closer he used to be.

The implication here being, apparently, that if K-Rod had more saves, he could punch all the old dudes he wanted to. Only a churl would point out that K-Rod’s actually better than he’s been since 2006: his walks are down, his home runs are down, his strikeouts are up. He has fewer saves because the Mets are awful. And you think he’s not the closer he used to be because you are awful.

The Mets would be smart to explore a trade for Rodriguez this off-season, and it’s not because the return on their investment isn’t quite what they expected.

Well, yeah. The Mets paid way too much money. Like, way, way, fuck-you too much money. Which is exactly why they aren’t going to be able to trade him — K-Rod makes like $15M next season. Nobody’s going to pay that, considering he already plays for the only team that would.

K-Rod goes because there’s too much Vince Coleman in him, too much Bobby Bonilla.

"Do you have a little Bobby Bonilla in you? Would you like to?"

That’s awesome on two different levels.

Wednesday’s incidents harken back to the early ’90s, when Jeff Torborg was afraid to take control of his clubhouse. Today, Manuel is guilty of the same crime.

Does Manuel have a device that allows him to set K-Rod to "crazy" mode so he’ll punch old guys or "sane" mode so he won’t? Because, otherwise, I gotta say that Wednesday doesn’t seem to reflect on Manuel much at all.

He’s smoother and hipper than Torborg, but just as unwilling to assert his authority over K-Rod.

The only reason K-Rod punched an old guy: Jerry Manuel was unwilling to tell him not to.

Also, Jerry Manuel is hip? He looks like Morgan Freeman’s nerdy younger brother.

Just watch, the reliever will be welcomed back with handshakes and hugs, a million alibis and rationalizations.

Yeah, probably. I mean, except for the alibis, since that makes no goddamn sense.

The Mets will suck up to Rodriguez’s good-guy half because it’s the easier, safer way to go.

Yeah, seems more sensible than starting a big fight with a co-worker, doesn’t it? Especially a co-worker with a documented history of punching dudes in the face when they rag on him.

Everyone will talk about bonding, pulling together, moving forward – right into the last six weeks of another lost season.

Hi, Bob! Welcome to the Mets! Please enjoy your stay.

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August 13th, 2010 Posted by Darien | Baseball | one comment