Short hops, quick pops and backhand stops:
• Prince Fielder went full-blown, bat-crap crazy on Aug. 4 in Los Angeles, attempting to charge into the Dodgers' clubhouse after reliever Guillermo Mota drilled him in the thigh with a pitch.
Then, on Sunday, Fielder and his Brewers staged an elaborate and choreographed routine to celebrate his game-winning homer against San Francisco. As Fielder stomped on home plate and bowed backwards like a conductor preparing to take a sweeping bow, the rest of the Brewers, gathered around the plate, toppled over and fell to the ground en masse in what appeared to be a cross between hero worship and a bunch of bowling pins getting knocked over. (See it here)
The relation between the two incidents is at once minimal -- and maybe not.
• Miller: The Sequel
There are those in the game who think that Fielder's Brewers -- and anybody else in their position -- can't have it both ways.
That he can't do everything short of sprinting out and dancing a victory jig on the mound around the opposing pitcher when he blasts a game-winning home run ... and then go ballistic when he's hit with a pitch.
Granted, Mota's pitch wasn't in retaliation for a flamboyant home run trot. In that instance, Dodgers star Manny Ramirez was hit with a pitch earlier in the game, Mota was seeking vengeance and Fielder didn't like it. Fine.
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| This over-the-top game-winning celebration by Prince Fielder and his Brewers teammates on Sunday upset many. (AP) |
"I talked to Prince about it and said, 'Prince, you've got some people upset at you', and I've heard from others who thought it was OK,'" Brewers general manager Doug Melvin says. "Those are the responses I've been getting.
"Prince said, 'If people are upset, I'll take the blame.' He said, 'I'm trying to have fun and bring the team together.'"
• While the old-school part of Melvin understands the negative reaction, the GM passionately defends his first baseman: "One thing with Prince is, he doesn't do any of that stuff in the middle of a game. He respects the game as much as anybody I've ever been associated with. He plays the game hard. If you look back in the fourth inning of that game Sunday, he stretched a single into a double. There are some MVP candidates who don't hustle like that.
"The other thing is, if you remember earlier in the year, when Reed Johnson took that grand slam away from him in the game against the Cubs, on his way back to the dugout, Prince tipped his cap all the way across the field to Reed and said, 'Good play.' I don't have any problem with the way Prince Fielder plays."
• On one level, Sunday's over-the-top celebration was a hoot. On another, with baseball already on hyper-alert to dish out punishments to pitchers who dare to provoke things with inside pitches, you wonder if we're treading toward a day where the sport will begin legislating home run celebrations, much like the crackdown on touchdown celebrations in the NFL, aka, the No Fun League.
One baseball official I spoke with this week said no, so far there have been no internal discussions about the subject. Besides, he said, walk-off home runs are especially dicey because how can you legislate actions or punishment when the game is over? There's a fine line between having fun and allowing fans to enjoy the show -- hey, it's sports, which is supposed to be entertainment -- and taking things too far. To a degree, it's an extension of the shaving cream-pies-in-the-face that have become prevalent during postgame television interviews.
• This surely isn't to paint the Brewers as evil, because they're not. Fielder is a charming fellow and the Brewers are an extremely likeable bunch. They were one of the best stories in the game during their playoff dash a year ago. And isn't it funny how nobody but the Cardinals uttered much of a peep (or a tweet) last year when the Brewers were the lovable underdogs?
So-called "over the top" home run celebrations aren't exactly new. The Oakland A's Bash Brothers team of the 1980s started the forearm bash, which drove many nuts. Ramirez flips his bat, and so do others. Colorado's Ryan Spillborghs tossed his helmet into the air after hitting a game-winning grand slam against the Giants a couple of weeks ago.
Yet it was the Brewers' choreographed celebration that elicited the most reaction -- including, even, a two-thumbs-down from Angels outfielder Torii Hunter, one of the most agreeable players in the game.
"I love to see Torii Hunter's smiling face after he goes up over the fence and catches a ball in center field," Melvin says. "Don't take away Prince Fielder's smiling face."
The Brewers live in the land of the "Lambeau Leap", where receivers for the beloved Green Bay Packers jump into the stands following touchdown receptions. So maybe the homer celebration is the next natural NFL infiltration into baseball.
"When Brett Favre throws a touchdown pass, he's running down the field with a raised helmet," Melvin says. "Bart Star didn't do that. Brett Favre does. Carl Yastrzemski didn't play left field the way Manny Ramirez does. I think you've got to accept the fact that times have changed.
"Some of us elder statesmen are wary of it, and you've got to be careful not to disrespect the game, but it's excitement. It's part of why people go to see our game.
"We need personalities in this game. Sometimes I think the game misses those personalities. And some of these guys aren't people who have done bad things. They just like to have fun."
• Of course, you can always contrast the shirt-yanking, chest-puffing, look-at-me antics of others with the ever classy Derek Jeter, who was uncomfortable in the applause while standing at first base after tying Lou Gehrig for most career hits by a Yankee on Wednesday night: "I really didn't know what to do because we were losing at the time and I didn't want to disrespect Tampa." Pure class, as always.
• Faced with losing Mark Teixeira to free agency last winter, the Angels set their sights last November on San Diego first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, only to be rebuffed. Their hope was to replace Teixeira at first with Gonazalez and use Kendry Morales in their outfield mix. Now? "They damn sure ain't going to be asking about Gonzalez this winter," says one major league executive. All Morales has done is play himself into Most Valuable Player conversations this summer, batting .310 with 30 homers (eighth in the AL) and 95 RBI (sixth).
• One scout who watched the Royals this month was appalled. "Kansas City is the worst club I've seen," he says. "They are something brutal. I saw them play the Angels, and it was like a college team vs. a professional team."
• One reason Zack Greinke's ERA is so low (an AL-leading 2.22), the Angels are starting to believe, is because the Kauffman Stadium official scorer favors him. The Angels were disgusted during last weekend's series when a Chone Figgins smash to second with Greinke pitching was ruled an error instead of a hit. Manager Mike Scioscia called the decision "a travesty." Says the aforementioned scout: "Why shouldn't Kansas City protect Greinke? That's all they have."
• Lots of people around the game think Toronto general manager J.P. Ricciardi will be let go after the season, and many of those people think clearing out manager Cito Gaston is necessary, too. "No team has played worse than Toronto for what they have," says one scout who watches the American League.
• Classy things Tigers owner Mike Ilitch has done this year: 1. Allowed General Motors, Chrysler and Ford free advertising in Comerica Park this summer during the automotive crisis, figuring a hometown discount was the proper thing to do to help neighbors in need. 2. Not interfered and ordered his baseball people to hold back as disappointing outfielder Magglio Ordonez closes in on vesting his 2010 contract (at a whopping $18 million). He needs a total of 1,080 plate appearances combined for 2008 and 2009 for the deal to automatically kick in (he was at 1,057 at mid-week). Ordonez, a key figure in the Tigers' resurgence since 2006 but now mired in a powerless year, has only seven homers and 40 RBI in 110 games (down from 28 and 139 during the '07 season).
Greg Bromberg 
