Saw this commercial on TV the other night, and laughed at it. It’s a commercial for the current iteration of the Take 2 MLB game, “MLB 2K10”. Made me laugh.
Ron Washington’s Story
So I’m driving around running some errands early this afternoon, and I have the XM talk channel on. They’re heading to commercial, and they say, “There is a breaking story, more on the update”. I figure, “eh, someone got released, or Strausberg got officially assigned to the minors”. By this time I get to the drive through teller at the bank, and they said “Ron Washington tested positive for cocaine use in 2009”, which prompted me to say out loud “Holy shit – that is a big deal”. I’m sure the teller heard me say that, but he didn’t ask me what I meant.
When they came back from break, Kevin Kennedy and some dude I don’t know who it is started talking about it, and at that time, not much in the way of facts were known. Before I get to my own thoughts on the matter, I feel compelled to get this point across in the graphic shown here.
While some might say that’s a harsh response, I have to say it was my honest and true immediate response to hearing the news. I mean, Ron has never done this before, and why at age 57 (I believe) when he’s fairly set in terms of his baseball career he felt it necessary to do that is beyond me. If he was a lifetime habitual user, I’d understand why he was doing it – but to START now? That’s where the dumbass comes from. I mean, really. Maybe we could get Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler from Saturday Night Live to do a “Really, Ron? REALLY??”
Here is the complete text of Ron Washington’s statement about this.
OK, the initial reaction remarks over, the attention then turns forward to “now what”? Thanks to Evan Grant, I’m going to copy this text of his regarding the “facts”…
The facts: Washington acknowledged he used cocaine last season sometime during the first half of the year and after he was rewarded a contract extension for 2010. Washington would not reveal any details of exactly how, where and when he obtained the cocaine, saying he bore the sole responsibility for what he called a “stupid mistake.”
• Washington was made aware of an upcoming drug test, immediately informed the Rangers and MLB of his use of the drug and entered a treatment program. He did, in fact, fail the drug test.
• Washington, who turns 58 on April 29, said it was the only time in his life he had used cocaine. When asked if he was saying that he had never used illegal drugs anytime in his life, he said only “I’ve never used this drug before.”
• Rangers GM Jon Daniels and President Nolan Ryan said the club discussed all possible options on the handling of Washington’s transgression. The club, however, could not reveal the failure of the drug test. That would have violated the confidentiality of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
• Washington said he completed the terms of MLB’s drug treatment plan two weeks ago. He said he was tested three times a week as part of that treatment. He also said he would be willing to submit to more testing to help reinforce that he is “clean.”
• MLB officials declined to comment, citing confidentiality regarding the testing/treatment plan. They said they would have no comment on reaction to Washington’s announcement.
Given how much of a wide berth sports fans generally give players for far worse transgressions than this, the calls I’m seeing for “Fire him now!” just does not work in my mind. So many Cowboys fans STILL want to hoist Michael Irvin up on a freakin’ pillar despite all the shit he’s done, yet Washington deserves to be run out of town for a single offense, despite the fact that he was apparently rather pro-active, and informed both the Rangers and MLB about taking it before the results of a drug test was known. That’s not the kind of mentality from a person who was trying to hide something. Given that he’s passed every drug test since that one he failed, I’ll buy into the fact it was a one time thing that hasn’t been an issue since.
Everything I’ve read on ESPN, MLB, and the Rangers blog at DMN tells me that it’s a non issue to the team too. There were a lot of quotes of support from Nolan Ryan & Jon Daniels about this. One has to think that Chuck Greenberg knew for awhile, too. So I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but if he ever fails for it a second time, he needs to go immediately. I do think that it makes his leash shorter. His contract was already going to be up after this season, so I suspect if the team goes into a tailspin, he might not have as long a slide time grace period as he did last year when everyone was calling for his head (unjustly, I think). Overall, I think he’s a good baseball man, someone who has to deal with a lot of things that none of us do, and someone who made an epic level screw-up in judgment. I’ll be curious to see what Josh Hamilton has to say about all this, given his own past.
From what I’ve read, the Comissioner’s Office could still hand down some sort of punishment, but my gut feeling is that there won’t be any. So lets give Ron our support, and I’ll accept his apology, provide that turns out to be the truth of what happened. If it turns out something else happened he hasn’t said, I’ll likely change my opinion, but for now, I think we should applaud him for being forthcoming with the problem he caused. I don’t think he should be let completely off the hook – perhaps some sort of fine might be in order?
But my religion tells me to forgive, so I will. But I still think it was a really stupid thing to do, hence my use of “dumbass”. Again, don’t forget all the other sports figures we’ve forgiven for far worse than this. I did also like that “almost all” of his players showed up the press conference in support of him. Still want to hear what Josh Hamilton has to say.
Let’s get to April, eh? :)
UPDATE: I was talking to a friend of mine about all this, and he said something which reminded me of a point I wanted to make, but forgot to when I wrote this earlier today. It’s the quote in Ron’s statement that says “Washington, who turns 58 on April 29, said it was the only time in his life he had used cocaine. When asked if he was saying that he had never used illegal drugs anytime in his life, he said only “I’ve never used THIS drug before.” “This” drug? What others has he used? If there are other drugs involved, the question becomes how long ago? If it was 20+ years ago, who cares? If it was a year and a half or so? Then we’d care.
UPDATE 2: Given I wrote about a dozen game updates to catch up with the last week and a half, I wanted this up near the top, so I bumped it up, even though I wrote it yesterday.
ST14: Rangers boomstick thrashes Mariners, 8-1
The Rangers finally opened up with some power. Something that’s been lacking all spring. Nelson Cruz had two of them. Josh Hamilton & Chris Davis both had home runs as well. Nelson Cruz did quite well this game. Went 3-3 with 3 RBI’s, and three runs scored. Brought his batting average up to .448.
Outside of the home runs, we had just one double (Salty), and a bunch of singles. But the home runs were definitely the story of this game.
On the pitching side, the Rangers looked quite good, too. Not at the start, though. The first eight pitches of the game by Scott Feldman were balls, as he walked the first two batters of the game. But he calmed down after that, as those were the only two walks of the game. In all, Scott went four innings, giving up just three hits and one run. Which isn’t bad at all considering the way the game started. Darren Oliver followed, tossed two scoreless innings, and Dustin Nippert tossed three. Really great performance by our pitching staff.
Amusing moment when Milton Bradley was called out. He did a Milton for sure, dropped his bat at the plate, and got himself ejected for doing that.
I did get to watch this game on TV, which was cool, as I haven’t been able to see or hear many games this year so far.
ST13: Rangers muted in 4-1 loss to Cubs
Mute is an interesting choice of words to describe our offense. We did score, but we certainly couldn’t muster much of anything. In all the Rangers managed just three hits against the Cubbies. They had a single by David Murphy, another single by Taylor Teagarden, and a home run by Justin Smoak. The home run by Smoak was all the offense we got.
Our pitching wasn’t exactly awful – 4 runs for a whole game, while not stellar, isn’t BAD either. Overall, the three Rangers pitchers combined for nine hits and four earned runs. We did, however, go back to our good ways with walks – just one (Beltre). Neftali Feliz started, and I’m starting to think he won’t make the rotation, he seems to have issues with guys when they get to the second time around in the lineup. Feliz went three innings, gave up six hits and three runs. There was one scoreless inning tossed by Omar Beltre, who was then followed by four innings by CJ Wilson, who also was pretty good. Three hits, one run, and five punchouts.
But the lack of offense was disappointing, for sure.
ST12: Rangers drop another one, 8-5 to Giants
This was the first night I was home from my trip to see my Grandparents, and I thought it was cool the Rangers were on TV that night. However, when I sat down to watch it, the 1,500 miles of driving I had done on Sunday and Monday caught up to me, and I passed out cold. Gave up, and went to bed.
I missed Rich Harden being pretty bad. 3.2 innings, five hits three walks, and five earned runs. Meh. His successor on the mound was no better, really. Doug Mathis went two innings, gave up two hints and FOUR walks, and just one run. Edwar Ramirez followed, gave up his own run, as did the final pitcher, Darren O’Day who gave up a run. The seven walks is by far the worst walk performance of the spring, something that’s caught my eye a lot this year. Our walk totals are fantastic. I just hope it holds up long term.
Offensively, we got another home run – this one by Nelson Cruz, who is really hot (.417 average so far). Vlad Guerrero however is NOT hot, going 0-3, and posting a spring average of just .217. Matt Brown is batting .538, and I wonder if he’ll make the club, as I believe he’s our Rule 5 guy we have to keep up. Justin Smoak had a double, and there were five singles. Another distinct lack of power.
After that modest three game winning streak, we’ve now lost the last three games, so that’s fairly disappointing.
ST11: Rangers drop SS game to Dodgers, 6-4
The second split squad game of the day was also a loss, this time a 6-4 game to the Dodgers.
Chris Davis went 2-3, continuing his torrid pace of spring hitting. Jarrod Saltamacchia doubled, driving in a run. Nelson Cruz also doubled, but again, no home runs, no real power, as it was more singles.
Pitching wise, Derek Holland started, and did well in his three innings. Just gave up two hits, and walked nobody. No runs, either. However, that’s about where that kind of pitching stopped. Of the six relievers used, only the last one (Eyre) didn’t give up any runs. Although Clay Rapada really tried to. He went one inning of work, but in that inning, gave up two hits and THREE walks, but just a single run.
ST10: Rangers drop SS game to DBacks, 9-3
I’ll copy this from the official Rangers report on the game, since I liked the text:
Josh Hamilton’s daughter, Julia, turned nine on Sunday. Hamilton promised her at breakfast that he would hit a home run for her, and he did just that. Hamilton hit his first home run of the spring with a two-run shot in the first inning. He also had a double in the third in going 2-for-3 on the day. He is 8-for-17 in the Cactus League after having to deal with a bruised left shoulder earlier in the month.
It broke a power outage problem the Rangers have been having lately. Josh Hamilton also had a double, too. Overall, the Rangers were shut down offensively this game, as we had just six hits. In a reversal of the way things have gone, four of the six hits were extra base hits (the three doubles and a home run).
Pitching wise, Colby Lewis started and pitched like OLD Colby Lewis. 3.1 innings, six hits, six earned runs. Was pretty bad.
Despite the bad pitching performance, we walked just one batter (Lewis).
Meh indeed.
ST9: McCarthy good in 5-0 shutout over Indians
The Rangers took their third game in a row to raise their overall record to 3-5-1 behind a very strong pitching performance overall. The Rangers shut out the Indians, 5-0 on Friday.
There were far more walks this game than usual by the Rangers this spring. In fact, there were more walks given up than hits. Five walks, four hits. None of it mattered really, as none of them scored.
Brandon McCarthy started, and went three spring innings, giving up just three hits. Darren Oliver tossed a perfect inning after that, followed by Luis Mendoza. Mendoza went three innings, gave up no hits, but two walks. Finally there was Guillermo Moscoso, who went two innings, giving up just one hit and two walks.
Offensively, we had twelve hits. Still no home runs. There were two doubles and a triple. In fact, Matt Brown was the best, as he went 2-3, with a double and a triple. Chris Davis had just one hit, but the hit raised his spring average to .522, which is really quite awesome looking. Be nice if holds a .300+ average when the games count. Nelson Cruz is raking, too, batting .421.
ST8: Rangers win second in a row, 6-2 over Padres
The Rangers picked up win #3 and their second in a row on Friday with a 6-2 win over the San Diego Padres.
The Rangers scored early with a 4 spot in the first, and a two spot in the second, and then that was it for their offense. Still not much power this spring. 13 hits, two double, 11 singles. No home runs, yet again. That’s turning out to be a bit of a surprise, tell you the truth. So long as we win, it’s not a problem, but it does seem uncharacteristic for sure.
The pitching was a better story here. Matt Harrison started, went three innings, gave up just three hits and no runs, walking nobody. Tommy Hunter followed, gave up just two hits and a single run in his three innings. The remaining three pitchers aren’t guys who are supposed to be in the majors, so their numbers aren’t as much of a concern to me, but it’s still nice to see a combined three innings and one run with no walks by them.
A couple of former Rangers made appearances in this game for the Pads. Jerry Hairson Jr went 1-3, and Adrian Gonzalez took an ofer. Former catcher Chris Stewart went 0-1.
ST7: Rangers unload on Colorado, win 16-5
The Rangers finally unloaded on someone in a way their general reputation says they should. Sadly, it’s just win #2 out of seven games so far. A 16-5 win is always good no matter where it comes in the year, whether it’s Game 7 of spring, to Game 25 of the regular season to Game 4 of the World Series in a sweep.
I’ll start with the Rangers pitching. Scott Feldman started, and continues to have a “meh” spring. Gave up three runs on five hits in 2 and a third innings. However, the pen that followed him was significantly better. In particular, Dustin Nippert was quite good, tossing three shutout innings and giving up just a lone hit. The only other pitcher to give up any runs was Warner Madrigal, who had three hits and two runs in his lone inning of work. The pitching was good in regards to walks again. Only two, and both of those by Scott Feldman.
There was a lot of offense, but again, not a lot of power. There was one home run, by Chris Davis, and seven doubles (by seven different Rangers). There were also 15 other singles, so there was a lot of offense, just not a ton of power. Taylor Teagarden drove in three, as did Chris Davis. Elvis Andrus, Nelson Cruz, & Pedro Borbon each drove in two, all the rest were scattered amongst various Rangers with single RBI’s.
Colorado helped with three errors. Their starter (Aaron Cook) was pretty awful, gave up nine hits and nine runs (only 5 earned – see errors) in 2.2 innings of work. Only walked one, though.
Nice to see the big win, but kind of a bummer it’s just #2 of the spring, however.
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