Coco Goes Loco

From now on, this blog will occasionally feature stuff about baseball, on account of the fact that I felt like it.

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I am a fan of the Tampa Bay Rays. I'd tell you why, but honestly I don't know. I guess I was just lured in by the false hope offered by Jorge Cantu, Joey Gathright and the sensational Seth McClung. It therefore gives me great pleasure to see them atop the American League East standings this year, after years of being fucking shite. (Note to baseball columnists everywhere - don't cite that 9 out of 10 last places stat every time. Don't dress it up any more than you have to. Tell the truth - they were fucking shite. Use asterisks if you have to.)

This week saw a three game series against the Red Sox. Tampa managed to lose them all. But that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was a damn good punch-up.



The video explains the background to the fight, but if you can't be bothered to listen to those bits, I'll explain it for you.

The Red Sox have a backup centre fielder named Coco Crisp. Everybody hates Coco Crisp. Fans of every team hate Coco Crisp. Even Red Sox fans hate Coco Crisp, albeit partly due to a bad trade that they made to get him.. The only person that doesn't hate Coco Crisp is one who can't talk. Coco Crisp is a marginal talent and a massive twat.

In the second game of the series, when Coco Crisp was making a slide into second base, Rays shortstop Jason Bartlett made a textbook block of the plate using his back leg. This is what you're supposed to when trying to tag out runners. For some unknown reason, Coco Crisp took offense to this. (This is probably because he's a massive twat.) On Crisps's next slide into a bag, he tried to hurt Rays second baseman Akinori Iwamura, much to the Rays chagrin.

Crisp then essentially baited the Rays during the post game press conference to deliberately hit him with a pitch. When the next day's starter James Shields then did this, Crisp charged the mound.

What a twat.


Now, whatever you think of baseball's unwritten rules (and personally I dislike almost all of them), it is not in question that the Rays adhered to them entirely correctly. Crisp's twatlike actions the previous day necessitated a deliberate hit-by-pitch, according to these rules, and the Rays obliged in accordance with the rules, hitting him in the leg and not the head. Yet Crisp charged the mound anyway.

Bartlett did everything correctly. Crisp then reacted like a twat. Shields then did everything correctly. Crisp then reacted like a twat. There's a pattern here, and Crisp's behaviour led to a good old fashioned brawl.


What happened after that was just funny. Bullet points:

1: I love baseball fights!

2: The actions of baseball legend Jonny Gomes have drawn ire from Red Sox fans, neutrals, and basically everybody except Jim Rome. Gomes did, after all, get in plenty of cheap shots on an already subdued Crisp. But, remember a few things.

a) Jonny Gomes is great.
b) Jonny Gomes had an opportunity to punch Coco Crisp, and, cheap shot or not, we'd all do this if we could.
c) When your team mate and friend is in a scuffle, you dive right in there, no questions asked.
d) Seriously, Jonny Gomes is great.

They were cheap shots, and his suspension (5 games) reflects this. (Crisp got the longest suspension of all 8 that were suspended, with 7 games.) But you would understand if you followed Jonny Gomes quite how fantastic he is. He steals third while weighing 250 pounds, he womanises, drinks, wrestles, boasts an enormous black cock, hits belt high fastballs over 8 million miles, says dumb shit to the media, can't hit a curve to save his life, has the art of plate discipline down to the fine art of guesswork, never turns down a fight, has a great beard, and runs amusingly in the wrong direction while playing the oufield. He's fantastic. If we could ever get his hitting to the point that he amsters basic comprehension of what pitch to swing at, then we have ourselves a champion.

Coco Crisp, meanwhile, is just a twat.

Just a bit of context there. It's a big man punching a far smaller man when the far smaller man is unable to fight back......but, at the same time, it's Jonny Gomes punching Coco Crisp. Swings and roundabouts.


3: Who said Dioner Navarro isn't a good defensive player? This was textbook subduction. (If that's a word.)

4: Apparently they don't teach boxing in Japan, because Akinori Iwamura's efforts here were ever so slightly effeminate.

5: Oh man. If only that Shields punch had landed. (Note: I say this not because I particularly wanted to see Crisp get hit in the face.....although it would be funny. It is, however, refreshing to see someone swing hard. So many mound charges are pathetic. But Shields swung, and he swung hard. This is how it should be.)

6: It is extremely weird that, after this brawl (in which Gomes, Shields and Crisp were ejected), three more HBP's took place, making 5 total for the game. Red Sox starter Jon Lester hit Iwamura and Rays left fielder Carl Crawford in their next at-bats, and it was hardly coincidental given the two's respective roles in the brawl. (All three got suspensions.) Yet Lester never got thrown out of the game, and nor did Rays reliever Al Reyes after hitting a fifth player late in the game. I think the umpires wanted to go home. But, had Lester been ejected, the Rays might have won. (OK, so probably not. But still.)

7: In the post game interviews after this game, Crisp continued to run his mouth. We're far from the end of this saga.

8: I love baseball fights!