Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Smelly Sox
The Giants beat the White Sox 6-2 yesterday afternoon, but the victory was hardly the big story. Two former Giants popped off after the game and stirred quite a bit of controversy. Angry comments were expected from one guy, for sure. The other, however, was somewhat of a shocker.
In the second inning of yesterday's game Joe Borchard smacked a two run homer off of Brett Tomko. When Borchard got to his locker after the game, he discovered a crisp $100 bill waiting for him. Apparently, everybody's favorite malcontent-cum-crotch-kicker A.J. Pierzynski had offered any Sox hitter $100 dollars if they could launch a homer off of Tomko. I guess that means Pierzynski and Tomko never actually made up after Tomko labeled A.J. a cancer in May last year. Pierzynski was somewhat candid about his time as a Giant, at one point admitting that he enjoyed his stay in San Fran. But he also ripped some unnamed players by saying "they know what they are." I'm not sure what that means, but I assume he's referring to Tomko being an ass or something. I'll have more on this and the whole A.J. thing tomorrow, in what I'm officially designating as "A.J. Pierzynski rant #1". That is to say, if you want to read more senseless apologizing for Pierzynski, be sure to show up here tomorrow night.
The other story involved Dustin Hermansen, who apparently alleges that the Giants screwed him out of two incentive clauses worth $100,000 each by making him a reliever. Instead of the $500,000 in incentive bonuses he was on pace for as a starter, he got $300,000 when he was made the closer at season's end. Boo-fucking-hoo. Apparently Hermansen forgot that he was drifting around in MLB limbo before Brian Sabean rescued him off the scrap heap in 2003 and revived his flatlining career. Without the Giants, Hermansen would probably be selling real estate right now and getting berated whenever he approached the coffee maker. Instead he's enjoying a cushy 2 year/$5.5 million deal to be a mediocre setup man for a mediocre baseball club. If the Giants had let him remain a starter and let him rack up a crappy ERA for 190 innings he would have probably been signed to some even crappier team for even less money. So here's the world's smallest violin playing just for Dustin Hermansen. Also, I guess Hermansen conveniently forgot that the Giants were in desperate need of a closer after Matt Herges began impersonating a flaming Wicker Man way too often. The team could have gone with any schmoe, but decided that Hermansen was the right man for the job, even though he was a starter and they were hard up for consistent starting pitchers at the time, too. Shouldn't he be proud of this vote of confidence instead of complaining that there was some conspiracy to rob him of incentive money?
Just for a little comparison's sake, I make roughly $11,000 a year in my demeaning job as a sales clerk. I'm sure anybody reading this would love to make $300,000 in a year as an average pitcher, or doing anything for that matter, but here's this replacement level middle reliever whining about relative chump change when he's the recipient of one of the offseason's more egregious gifts. The Giants don't owe Hermansen dick, and he should just shut his yap before the Sox realize that they made a mistake by awarding him a silly contract when Felix Diaz would have gotten the job done equally well for a quarter of the price.
In the second inning of yesterday's game Joe Borchard smacked a two run homer off of Brett Tomko. When Borchard got to his locker after the game, he discovered a crisp $100 bill waiting for him. Apparently, everybody's favorite malcontent-cum-crotch-kicker A.J. Pierzynski had offered any Sox hitter $100 dollars if they could launch a homer off of Tomko. I guess that means Pierzynski and Tomko never actually made up after Tomko labeled A.J. a cancer in May last year. Pierzynski was somewhat candid about his time as a Giant, at one point admitting that he enjoyed his stay in San Fran. But he also ripped some unnamed players by saying "they know what they are." I'm not sure what that means, but I assume he's referring to Tomko being an ass or something. I'll have more on this and the whole A.J. thing tomorrow, in what I'm officially designating as "A.J. Pierzynski rant #1". That is to say, if you want to read more senseless apologizing for Pierzynski, be sure to show up here tomorrow night.
The other story involved Dustin Hermansen, who apparently alleges that the Giants screwed him out of two incentive clauses worth $100,000 each by making him a reliever. Instead of the $500,000 in incentive bonuses he was on pace for as a starter, he got $300,000 when he was made the closer at season's end. Boo-fucking-hoo. Apparently Hermansen forgot that he was drifting around in MLB limbo before Brian Sabean rescued him off the scrap heap in 2003 and revived his flatlining career. Without the Giants, Hermansen would probably be selling real estate right now and getting berated whenever he approached the coffee maker. Instead he's enjoying a cushy 2 year/$5.5 million deal to be a mediocre setup man for a mediocre baseball club. If the Giants had let him remain a starter and let him rack up a crappy ERA for 190 innings he would have probably been signed to some even crappier team for even less money. So here's the world's smallest violin playing just for Dustin Hermansen. Also, I guess Hermansen conveniently forgot that the Giants were in desperate need of a closer after Matt Herges began impersonating a flaming Wicker Man way too often. The team could have gone with any schmoe, but decided that Hermansen was the right man for the job, even though he was a starter and they were hard up for consistent starting pitchers at the time, too. Shouldn't he be proud of this vote of confidence instead of complaining that there was some conspiracy to rob him of incentive money?
Just for a little comparison's sake, I make roughly $11,000 a year in my demeaning job as a sales clerk. I'm sure anybody reading this would love to make $300,000 in a year as an average pitcher, or doing anything for that matter, but here's this replacement level middle reliever whining about relative chump change when he's the recipient of one of the offseason's more egregious gifts. The Giants don't owe Hermansen dick, and he should just shut his yap before the Sox realize that they made a mistake by awarding him a silly contract when Felix Diaz would have gotten the job done equally well for a quarter of the price.
