So Shelley Duncan doesn’t think the Rays should be upset about his slide into second, which ignited a bench-clearing brawl. I could almost believe that, except that he actually refers to his slide as “play[ing] the game the right way.” Let’s see…
Guess what, Shelley? The ONLY possible defense, the ONLY way I will believe that you weren’t being a jackhole and trying to hurt Iwamura, is if I hear the following explanation:
I am just really, really, really bad a sliding. I’ve been playing baseball for twenty years, but no one ever taught me how to slide. My dad is a pitching coach, you know. So I was going into second, and I knew I needed to slide, and my brain tried to remember how, and by the time it kind of remembered, I was already almost to the base, so as you can see, I slid so late that my shoulders went over the base. Oh, and there was a banana peel on the ground, which is why my spikes were so high. I mean, I obviously know that the purpose of sliding is to get my feet to the base, so of course I wouldn’t slide with my spikes that high, because it totally defeats the purpose. But no, I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone … I’m just a really crappy slider.
But no. Instead, we get him trying to tell us he was playing the game the right way…
There are two things I find amusing. First, the suspensions that were handed down are for the regular season, so these guys will miss games that actually count and the pay from them for actions during a Spring Training game. Second, he’s a dude but his name is Shelley.