MARLBORO, NY– We really don’t need a meteorologist talking about the heat index because if you couldn’t tell, it’s hot as hell out there. Be safe and hydrate if you’re doing anything outside in this weather. There are a couple of sports items that are hot of the press and both are baseball related – which is a bit of an oddity for me, as a hockey and football guy. Here they are…
Tim Tebow: It was announced a few days ago that the current member of the New York Mets AA affiliate Binghamton Rumble Ponies and former NFL quarterback and genuflector has been named to the Eastern League All-Star team. Really? Tebow is hardly tearing things up down in the minors. A .261 batting average with little home run pop (five dingers) speaks for itself. The guy is soon to be thirty-one years old and being feted in this manner smells of another Tebow publicity stunt which this minor league entity is trying to cash in on and one that the New York Mets will look to do likewise sooner rather than later.
Attendance figures for the Mets will undoubtedly take more of a nose dive as soon as the dog days of August roll around with the Mets struggling to stay out of the NL East cellar. Given the team’s constant bad luck with injuries, one can only deduce Tim Tebow is an injury or two away to outfielders from a spot on the big club’s roster. At the very least, we are guaranteed to see Tebow patrolling the outfield for the Mets as a September call up. The promotion won’t be merit-based. It will be a desperate attempt to make a few more dollars in the form of fannies in the seats while the Holy Roller continues to think he has a chance of playing Major League Baseball. The Wilpons will not pass on the opportunity because they’re tight as a clam’s ass. My question to our readers is this: When does an organization or a 31 year-old career minor leaguer call it quits to a mediocre career at best?
Kevin Abel: If you haven’t heard about what this recently-turned-nineteen-year old freshmen did for his Oregon State Beavers in winning the College World Series, pull up a chair. The entire scenario is ripe with superhuman effort and lack of responsibility.
Abel is a pitcher who in a five-day span of the tournament took the mound in three consecutive games within the time frame. The young man appeared as a starter for the bookend games and as a one-inning reliever during the middle game. In all, Abel threw a mind-numbing 247 pitches during this pressure-packed stretch of games. Unbelievable. The kid, and that’s just what he is, won a record four College World Series games but what really is unfathomable is his overuse at the hands of Oregon State’s baseball coach Pat Casey. This selfish bastard should have to serve some type suspension for penciling in the same arm as often as he did. In an age of pitch counts and Tommy John surgeries what does an act like this do to a young player’s career. And at what cost? So Casey can bask in the limelight of being a CWS-winning coach? This sickens me and borders on abuse. Am I wrong here? Fill in the comments section below for further discussion.
And don’t forget to come back tomorrow for DJ Eberle, who is our Kevin Abel.
