OK, it’s official. I will never, ever throw a baseball at the Mets’ Cliff Floyd.
From Newsday’s Bob Herzog.
Cliff Floyd glared, pointed and barked at Houston pitcher Roy Oswalt after getting hit by a pitch last night, but exercised restraint by not charging the mound. He did not, however, hold back a thing, verbally, afterward.
“Yes. Obviously,” Floyd said when asked if Oswalt intended to hit him high on the right arm in the seventh inning after a wild pitch moved Carlos Beltran to second and left first base open.
“You have to go out there and do something about it and I chose not to. I really don’t know why. But every dog has his day,” Floyd said. “He’ll get his. It’s just unfortunate that he goes that route. His pride is too high that he won’t throw four balls. When you hit someone like that, you deserve not only to lose, but to get hit by a line drive somewhere.”
“He hit me in the same situation, the same spot last year,” Floyd said. “You know me. I play the game hard. I don’t disrespect anybody. He has good stuff. That’s why it ticks you off when he does something like that. Really, he’s an unbelievable pitcher. But in my mind, he ain’t ‘S.’ ”
No one was around to censor Floyd’s words later. “The thing about athletes is that we work to hard to earn our money. I got kids to feed. I can’t let him take money off my table,” Floyd said. “When you do stupid stuff like that, you’re taking chances on hurting people, taking a chance on losing people for games. For just the sake of what – I don’t want to face you? So put me on. Four pitches. It’s simple. But when our egos get in the way, that’s how people end up in prisons, end up dead. It’s unfortunate.
Most of Cliff Floyd’s homies are dead or in jail? When Oswalt threw at the Cubs last year, Dusty naturally overworked the pitching staff by having three shots taken to Oswalt’s one. No one got involved with the Justice over it, but Steve Stone lost his job.
Dang, Peace Out!
Ben