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Major League Baseball sent a clear message to Mike Rizzo on Tuesday: You can’t call someone chicken poop.
MLB said Tuesday that Rizzo was disciplined for his comment on Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels, without revealing specifics.
The Washington Nationals general manager was upset that Hamels hit Nationals rookie Bryce Harper with a pitch on Sunday, then later admitted to hitting him by calling it “old-school baseball.”
That brought this response from Rizzo: “I’ve never seen a more classless, gutless, chicken (poop) act in my 30 years in baseball. Cole Hamels says he’s old school? He’s the polar opposite of old school. He’s fake tough.”
Hamels got a five-game suspension, and apparently got his mouth washed out with Lifebuoy.
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Of course, this is the same Mike Rizzo who refuses to see the movie “Moneyball.”
Rizzo said: “Yes, it’s true, I’m boycotting the movie, because I think it depicts baseball people as dummies that just sit in the room, spit tobacco, and say stupid things. So I did boycott the movie, because scouting is my life and it’s near and dear to me. And I don’t like it to be depicted in that regard.”
For the record, Mike Rizzo does NOT spit tobacco.
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So, as it turns out, Kelso and Prairie did not play a tiebreaker softball game Tuesday. League standard operating prodecures called for the tie to broken by quality wins, which means Kelso is No. 2 and Prairie is No. 3.
And that makes sense. The only time a tiebreaker should be played is when it means one team will be eliminated. Otherwise, any other tiebreak process — quality wins, coin toss, building a house of cards — is better.
