thelesterlee
The best part of a failed season is when stories leak about locker room incidents that we probably wouldn’t know about from a team heading to the World Series. The Yankees lost the Wild Card game and we’ve got a story about Gerrit Cole being the least fun human on Earth.
Losing Spider Tack was obviously a setback to Cole and other pitchers who considered it indispensable. (Hint: that means most every hard thrower in the game). To soften the blow and lighten the moment, Gardner paraded around the clubhouse with pine tar on his hat. He was trying to get a laugh out of Cole. Apparently it had just the opposite effect.
According to the source, Cole, in full view of his teammates, got in Gardner’s face and told him to knock it off. Mind you, Gardner was the Yankees’ senior-ranking member and the last remaining connection to the 2009 championship club. If anyone knows about winning – and the clubhouse chemistry that goes with it – it’s Gardner.
Cole didn’t see it that way, pushing back in a way that must’ve shocked the veteran outfielder. It took a full day for Cole to calm down; he ended up apologizing to Gardner. The matter was dropped, but it nevertheless spoke to Cole’s skittishness.
Before we break down this interaction between Gerrit Cole and Brett Gardner, it’s important to take a minute to shit on Major League Baseball for randomly cracking down on pitchers using foreign substances in the middle of a season with no real warning or actual purpose.
First, who cares? By all accounts, using sticky shit helps pitchers control and not their velocity. So if you are attempting to give hitters an advantage then wouldn’t you want more pitches in the strike zone? Ya know, so hitters can…hit them?
You’re penalizing pitchers who throw hard and risking injury. Tyler Glasnow’s arm exploded because of this rule starting midseason unprovoked.
Also quick side note, very funny that a few people have tried to defend Trevor Bauer brutally assaulting women by saying that MLB didn’t like how Bauer publicly shit on the new rules so they manufactured these stories. This league can barely install a new rule without everyone universally throwing tomatoes at them yet they are somehow savvy enough to manipulate the justice system. Ok. As you’re reading this, Rob Manfred is tripping over his own untied shoelaces.
Anyway, back to Gerrit Cole being a buzzkill.
Cole is a man who clearly takes himself very seriously and cares how his career is perceived. He doesn’t want his accomplishments to have asterisks next to them. Whether it’s his involvement with the Houston Astros cheating or now using sticky stuff.
But to publically attack Brett Gardner—the team leader—after he made a simple joke was the corniest thing Cole could’ve done. I don’t know anything about team chemistry because I was never a Major League Baseball player but everyone walking on eggshells around the highest-paid player on the team probably isn’t great for morale.
You can see this team rarely has fun out there. They are pressing during every at-bat and when they hardly celebrate their success. Perhaps the front office was right when they put the blame on the players and not the coaching staff but at the same, it’s the front office who put together a roster of guys who can’t even make jokes with each other.
Get rid of everyone.
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