The Worst Crime In Baseball Ever
Writers, voters and opinion makers, lend us your ears; We come to bury Dan Le Batard, not to praise him.
Jerk!
The Miami Herald columnist and ESPN talker has sinned. In a burst of anger, disgust and self-promotion, he turned his back on the Baseball Hall of Fame, only to suffer at the righteous hand of anger, disgust and self-promotion.
How could he?
Le Batard broke the code. He let the untouchable masses of the Internet bathe in the pure waters of a dying print media, while urinating on the sacred efforts of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Urinating?
Really?
Almost.
Pardon the Interruption co-host and FOLB (Friend of Le Batard) Tony Kornheiser said, “What is not good is if you say ‘I laugh at you. My ego is such that I laugh at you and spit in your face’ and give my vote away.”
Holy crap! Le Batard spit on someone!
In an ultimate gesture of disrespect toward the system to which the glory of baseball (and, for that matter, America itself) is owed, the Miami native sucked deep into his windpipe, producing a pound of lung butter and soaked the fine voters who took the time to document the amazing careers of J.T. Snow, Eric Gagne and Jacque Jones. Relatively speaking.
Le Batard, so smug and tanned in his Sonny Crockett blazer, openly boasted of his crimes to TK and Odd Couple buddy Michael Wilbon:
“I don’t want to be the center of this, but there is no way of doing it without being the center of it. There is no way around it.”
He continued to dig his own grave.
“For 10 years I have been on my platforms trying to instigate change and have done so unsuccessfully. I haven’t attracted the amount of attention in 10 years trying this than I did yesterday,” he said on Mike & Mike a day after the voting was released.
He thought he was untouchable. “The BBWAA Board of Directors has decided to remove Dan Le Batard’s membership for one year, for transferring his Hall of Fame ballot to an entity that has not earned voting status. The punishment is allowed under the organization’s constitution.* In addition, Le Batard will not be allowed to vote on Hall of Fame candidates from this point on. The BBWAA regards Hall of Fame voting as the ultimate privilege, and any abuse of that privilege is unacceptable.”
Guilty!
Rules must be followed.
* “A written statement of charges of any alleged misconduct against a member shall be served on the respondent at least 15 days in advance of any hearing or trial.”
He knows what he did wrong.
* “The written statement shall include a reference to the provision in the Constitution or other governing rule or regulation alleged to have been violated …”
Lawyer’s trick.
* “No adverse action shall be taken against the respondent based on information outside the record developed at the hearing or trial.”
Ummm …
smurray@midweek.com
Twitter@SteveMurray84
