Nothing spices up the boring middle of the baseball season better than a good old-fashioned verbal beanball war between players on rival teams. The Mets‘ Francisco Rodriguez and the Yankees‘ Brian Bruney would certainly seem to subscribe to this view, given the way they’ve been going at each other.
It all started Friday night, after the Yankees took advantage of a dropped pop-up to hand K-Rod his first blown save in 17 chances. Bruney said after the game, “Unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like that. I have, but in high school. It couldn’t happen to a better guy on the mound, either. He’s got a tired act.”
Clearly, K-Rod’s enthusiastic, chest-thumping celebrations rub Bruney the wrong way. “I just don’t like watching the guy pitch,” Bruney elaborated. “I think it’s embarrassing.”
K-Rod waited until after Saturday’s 6-2 win over the Yankees to respond. “If it comes out from somebody big like Mariano [Rivera], somebody who has been around and who is good at what he does, I would respect that from him,” the closer shot back. “But some guy that I don’t even know who it is, hasn’t maybe played a full year in the big leagues, always been hurt …”
Good point from K-Rod. Who the hell is Brian Bruney? And why should I care what he thinks of anything? Worrying what he says about K-Rod is like sweating some blogger’s assessment of Raul Ibanez. It’s best not to even acknowledge it. All you can do is lend the guy a legitimacy you claim he doesn’t deserve.
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