ROCKET, AJ, & DANNY

Danny Almonte

There are three stories out in the world of baseball that are stranger than fiction. Each need to be looked at a little more closely and here is the only place where you’ll see all three lumped into one column.

There is a theory out there that MLB has suspended the Rocket for fifty days because he tested positive for steroids. On the surface you may say this is ridiculous and should be lumped in with the Kennedy Conspiracy and Michael Jordan turned to baseball when the NBA banned MJ for his gambling links. But when you look a little more closely at the Rocket you’ve got to wonder. Recently Roger Clemens’ agent said The Rocket will make his decision on which team to sign with in eight days, which is exactly 50 days, things that make you go Hmmm.

Everybody hates AJ Pie! Understood, he is an agitator! He’s good at it, it’s what he does best! But if you look objectively at what happened on Saturday, there’s only one possible conclusion you could come to, AJ was in the right and Michael Barrett was in the wrong. Barrett was blocking the plate and AJ was trying to score on a sac fly. Something had to give, and that something was Barrett. AJ bowled over Michael like a bowling ball hitting the pocket, slapped the plate to make sure he’d scored (you never want to leave anything to the umpire), and got up to retrieve his helmut. At which point Barrett grabbed AJ in a bear hold, said – “I didn’t even have the ball, bitch”, and sucker punched AJ. Pierzynski said if he had it to do over again he wouldn’t have gotten his helmut and Barrett said he would have simply pushed him rather than a punch. AJ said he and Barrett rain clinics together in the offseason and never thought Michael was going to punch him. Not a good example for all you youngsters out there watching, although it was the best hit the Cubbies got all day, losing 7-0. Good guys wear black!

Saw a story where Danny Almonte, the little leaguer who pitched a perfect game a few years back, got married to a thirty year old. Almonte had lied about his age when he tossed the gem. It turned out he was two years older than he actually was. This kid can’t seem to win, now he’s getting all this attention for playing with a kid that’s older than him, back then he was playing with kids too young for him. Danny married this 30 year old last fall when he was only 18. It turns out he had his eye on her when he was a pony leaguer, she kept saying, “You’re only a kid. I’m an adult. We could get in trouble”. Now they’re married, something disturbing about this story.