Pity poor Ryan Dempster. This should have bee a great offseason for him.First, he takes to the Chicago Cubs to the cleaners on a four-year, $52 million contract that has future regrets written all over it. Then, he's able to opt out of pitching for Canada in the World Baseball Classic, dedicating himself to regaling the Second City's press corps with bon mots and bad impressions in between sessions of sunning himself in Arizona and soft-tossing at minor leaguers for an inning or two.
Unfortunately for Ginger Balls, a few random Canadian yahoos have had the temerity to wonder why he is being such a pantywaisted nancy-boy when it comes to the WBC. Random yahoos like the Greatest Canadian to Swing a Bat in Anger, Larry Walker.
The attacks have gotten so fierce that the red-haired right-hander thrust himself into the understanding arms of Ken Rosenthal, who consoled him in a January 26 post at foxsports.com.
"I respect the game. I play hard. Now I'm getting criticized in Canada for the first time in my career just because I choose not to play in an exhibition tournament. How crazy is that?"
It's not actually that crazy, really. Surely, Dempster knew that balking at wearing the maple leaf wouldn't go over well in the nation that mints Paul Henderson's 1972 Summit Series goal on its currency.
Moreover, a pitcher who was allegedly healthy enough to sign a long-term contract just a couple of months ago should probably be healthy enough to come to Toronto for a weekend and throw three innings of baseball. This isn't exactly a Sisyphean task.
Don't get us wrong here. We don't want to castigate Dempster for making his choice. It was his to make, and if it makes sense to him, then so be it. We just wish he would shut up, stop whining and acting like a victim and OWN HIS DECISION.
If there is a positive to take out of this episode, it's that this hopefully means that Dempster won't be able to trade on his Canadian passport to get media work on this side of the 49th after his arm goes flying off into the third base dugout at Wrigley. Because we remember his "analysis" on Sportsnet's playoff coverage a few years back, and his scorn for the entire exercise was palpable.
8 comments:
Worst post ever on this site.
He has 30 ML starts ahead of him. risking any injury for the "classic" is absurd. What if Wells, BJ, Rios, Barajas or Scutaro goes down for the season? That would be great for their respective countries, and the fans of the teams that rely on their contracts to be fullfilled.
I can't believe you wrote this garbage.
What if there where no hypothetical situations?
And yet somehow every major professional soccer league STOPS PLAY to allow for constant international tournaments and qualification. Ryan Dempster can't pitch for Canada because "he's gotta work."
Also, were he a hockey player, he'd have been run out of town months ago. What is the difference? Canada has a shot contending, you have an excuse to get drunk and hang a flag out of your Japanese made vehicle.
Sorry, Lloyd, but I really see drunk-driving hockey fans as GM owners, so I'll have to bail out on your analogy.
I have to agree with anon.
Pitchers have greater injury risk than most other athletes. Add that to the fact that a SP needs to follow a very strict warm up routine in ST, and it makes little sense for him to risk it, especially after signing a major contract.
If he got hurt in the WBC, he would be run out of Chicago, FYI Lloyd.
As a Canadian, I would love to see him pitch for us, but if I were a Cubs fan, I wouldn't, just as I will be very worried every time BJ gets the ball.
I'm half and half. I'm glad Roy isn`t pitching but I wish Dempster was.
All that really matters is that I laughed at the Henderson line.
how is "lloyd the gay barber" un-original? your blog sucks worse than his, by the way.
Everybody sucks.
It's like a Dyson convention around here.
Whhooooooooooooooshhh!
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