Neanderthal

Last month, somebody in the NYT sports’ section wrote that criticism of Jose Bautista’s bat-flipping was code for the bad old days of lily-white baseball.  In other words, tattoos and homerun antics are a sign of social progress, all of which puts me, Buck Showalter and Goose Gossage on the wrong side of history.  So be it.

That also makes what Jose Abreu did yesterday pretty reactionary.  And what exactly did the White Sox first baseman do?  Why, he apologized for his behavior on Friday night.  After taking a fastball off his body from Twins’ reliever Trevor May, Abreu took a few steps towards the mound, but stopped far short of trying to deliver a punch.

Upon further review, Abreu did not like how he behaved.  “What I did probably didn’t look too good,” he told reporters through a team interpreter.  “It didn’t look like I had respect for the game.  That’s why I apologized.  Not because I did something bad.  It’s just because in the eyes of the people who saw the game and all the kids, it wasn’t the best reaction.”  Holy Bryce Harper, that makes Abreu into a kind of Uncle Tom, and me considerably worse.

I also liked what Chris Sale did last night, after giving up two runs in the first inning on a bases-loaded walk and hit-by-pitch.  Sale took the ball and hit himself in the head, twice.  After the game, he called himself “an idiot” for doing that.  OK, we don’t want our star pitcher giving himself a concussion, not ever and especially not when he’s started the season at 7-0, but you have to love what he demands of himself.  Sale went on to retire 19 of the last 20 batters he faced while striking out nine in seven innings.  Nothing idiotic about that.