Looking For Fights In All The Wrong Places

The talk today is not about another home run given up by Francisco Rodriguez, and how the multi-year contract he was given in the off-season is being to look mighty worrisome. It's not about the grit that the Mets' Quadruple-A lineup showed in scoring three runs in the eighth to temporarily tie the score in what eventually became a 5-4 loss.

No, the talk today is apparently about how many ways the New York Mets - and presumably their fans - can desecrate the bloody and beaten corpse of Matt Cain.

Cain is a marked man today, for having the temerity to lose the handle on his fastball in a 0-0 game in the fourth inning with a man on first and nobody out. Mets fans at the game, momentarily stunned into silence by the sight of their last remaining superstar face down and motionless beside home plate, began to roar their disapproval for Cain as it became clear that Wright was going to leave the field under his own power.

Cain was not trying to hit Wright; the Giants are actually in a playoff race and can ill afford to give games away to bottom feeders like the Mets. There's no history between Wright and Cain or Wright and the Giants, so intentionally hitting the batter in that spot means nothing more than another baserunner in what was shaping up as a tight, low-scoring game.

It's a sad commentary on society today that baseball fans have become so bloodthirsty for violence that they expect batters who have been hit by a pitch to attack the opposing pitcher and to start a brawl in the middle of a sporting event.

(Read the entire post at Productive Outs and Crackerjack)