The White Sox will not make the playoffs this year.
They can blame A.J. Pierzynski for this. It's Pierzynski's fault. It always is. The biggest instigator on the White Sox and probably in all of baseball committed baseball's cardinal sin.
As a Cubs' fan, mentioning cardinal and White Sox in one sentence is messin' with my own baseball karma but since there's nothing left to jinx this season, I feel ok with this.
What did Pierzynski do? Well if you watched the Red Sox come-back win over the Chi-Sox, you may have noticed this. Boston tied the game in the 9th, and with two outs, Pierzynski ran to the backstop and then over near the wall directly in front of the Boston fans to catch a foul ball.
He caught the ball in his over-sized catcher's mitt and then with his over-sized ego, took the ball out of his mitt, stretched out his hand and the ball to a fan. And then yanked it away.
This is unforgivable. And the Baseball Gods will punish accordingly.
I know Pierzynski will come up with some excuse if he's asked about the incident. He's good at playing the victim. During the Michael Barrett punching controversy he gave his best, 'Who me? What did I do? I was just going for my helmet.'
Tell me. Have you ever seen a major leaguer retrieve his own helmet?
I'm not going to assume that the other White Sox players, or Ozzie Guillen, will defend Pierzynski and his behavior. But if they want to do right by the Baseball Gods they're all going to have to do some serious atoning.
I've got just the right punishment: They must wear Cubs' hats during batting practice. I believe the Baseball Gods will look favorably upon this gesture and so will I.
Posted by Karen Anderson at 9/4/2006 10:31:00 PM
