Hug It Out
Surprising absolutely no one, Josh Beckett confirmed he’ll appeal his 6-game suspension resulting from the fracas on Sunday at The Big A.
“Like I said the other day, that ball could have ended up anywhere,” Beckett said. “It’s unfortunate where it ended up. That’s the only reason I’m standing here dealing with all this stuff. We’ll see where it goes from here. We don’t agree. I respect the job everybody has to do. But we don’t agree.”
As much as anything about this whole catastrophe can be funny, Beckett’s response to questions about the almighty Mike Scioscia accusing him of “not showing remorse” manages to be funny:
“I don’t really feel like I did anything. It’s unfortunate,” Beckett said. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. Am I supposed to go give him a hug? I wasn’t really in a hugging mood right then. I don’t really know what they wanted me to do.
“They made their own judgment on it. I had two umpires tell me that I handled it great. One of them publicly said that. The other one told me twice, once when I was coming off the mound and once right afterwards.”
And during tonight’s marathon of a ballgame, Jerry Remy snorted in disbelief at the notion that Beckett not properly expressing “remorse” would lead to a suspension… and offered up his own idea of what Josh could do to make it up to everyone:
He should grab the PA: ‘I would like to offer my sincere apologies for letting that one fly over the head of Bobby Abreu. It was not intentional. I would hope that all of you here at Los Angeles would please forgive me.’ I mean, I think that was probably called for in the middle of the inning.
Leave it to Remy to cut right through Scioscia’s bullcorn.
If they need someone to go hug them, I’m sure Papi will volunteer.
Beckett just doesn’t look like a hugger to me….
and have I mentioned how much I love Remy?
So the choices are, walk off the mound toward Abreu, gesturing and yelling, as the benches and bullpens empty, OR give him a hug / address the public over the PA system? Just not doing anything and letting the umpires sort it out not an option?
I don’t believe the pitch was intentional, and the suspension is ridiculous, but Beckett didn’t help his case with the way he yelled back at Abreu.
I don’t think Beckett or Remy (or anyone else, myself included) believe there were only two ways Beckett could/should have acted in that situation. Like I said yesterday, when he left the mound, he absolutely escalated the situation into a benches-clearer.
They were addressing Mike Scioscia’s explicit complaint that Beckett wasn’t “remorseful”, and were joking about ways he should have expressed remorse in a way that would satisfy Scioscia (and the league).
After talking about this for days now, I appreciate the laughs.
Thanks for the video clip, Texy. I missed DO/Remy last night.
What a disappointing game last night. Daisuke with a fatigued shoulder after his *second* start is not a good thing.
I hope your talk goes well.
well the red sox may have been horrific so far, but it’s moments like that that make up for it.
I did find it interesting how quickly Remy seemed to change his perspective on the whole thing when the suspension came down. He very clearly felt that Beckett was to blame in his audio commentary after the game. Now, he thinks that Beckett did just fine and behaved as he should have.
Of course, I enjoyed Remy’s comments though…they are sheer comedy and of course, that is how they are meant.
Now what I find most interesting is not only Becks dead pan deliver when talking about not wanting to hug it out….but also him saying 2 umps told him he dealt with the situation really well. I think that says something. Of course, I doubt any umps are going to confirm that, but I definitely believe it. Of course, Beckett didn’t make the situation any better…and if he got tossed from that game, I would have understood it, but he didn’t. He was left in the game and then a witch hunt came after him a couple of days later.
Beckett is obviously not blameless in terms of escalating the situation by leaving the mound and pointing. However, I’m stunned and annoyed that MLB felt like they had to override the decision making of Joe West and the umpiring crew penalize Beckett. What’s the point of having umps to referee situations if MLB can retrospectively penalize players like this?
I would have killed to have been a fly on the wall when Beckett first heard about his suspension and I, like Remy, would love to sit in on the appeal. Maybe Ortiz can give Beckett some hugs to make him feel better. :-)
Should Beckett have mouthed off? Prob not, but that sure doesn’t warrant a 6 game suspension, and I’m glad he’s fighting it. That being said I absolutely love Beckett. He’s just what you want in an Ace- brash, cocky, and pitches like his a** is on fire. He kinda reminds me of another Texas Pitcher- Roger Clemens (minus the roids of course). I can only hope that this minor speed bump only adds more fuel to the fire (like he needs it) and he goes out and pitches a gem on Saturday (I may be a bit biased cause I have tickets).