Warning: I am not one who is big on smack talking. If you like the Dodgers and/or Zack Greinke, don’t read any further.
This morning, I was enjoying my treadmill run, with my iPod in my ears, and the TV on the treadmill tuned to ESPN. It’s quite interesting the things you can learn while reading the closed captioning. I think I actually pay much more attention to what is being said when I read it. I’m not trying to do a million other things and don’t hear what the announcers are saying. Back to my story…they were showing the pre-game press conference with the Cardinals and Dodgers.
First guy up to the mic was Mike Matheny. He was talking about giving Joe Kelly the start. Next up was Joe Kelly, who just so happened to look like a little kid on Christmas Eve. He was practically bouncing out of his seat, talking into the microphone to the reporters. He was making comments about how excited he was, and how when he got the tap by Matheny that he actually broke out in goosebumps. This guy, this Joe Kelly guy…he represents everything to me that is why I love baseball so much. You follow players who you know love the game. They would do anything to hear the roar of the crowd. They would do anything for their team.
Enter into the press room, Zack Greinke. Smug as all get-out. Cocky as only Zack Greinke can be. He sits himself somewhere behind the table at the press conference, sticks his left arm on top of the chair beside him, as if he’s pulling the 7th grade boy move where he’s with a girl at a movie, and slouches himself back. I swear, if he wasn’t chomping on some gum just to be rude, I would be surprised. I just wasn’t paying that much attention. Body language was enough for me, I started paying more attention to my pacing than to what the heck this fool was saying. Have you ever wanted to stare down somebody on TV, just to make them uncomfortable? Well, I wish I would have had that super power today.
A couple of years ago, 2011 to be exact, when Greinke was still with the Brew crew, and the Cards were playing them in the NLCS, Greinke made some ridiculous comments about Chris Carpenter. Here, let me share his thoughts: “They think his presence, his attitude out there sometimes is like a phony attitude and then he yells at people. He just stares people down and stuff. And most pitchers just don’t do that. And when guys do, I guess some hitters get mad. Some hitters do it to pitchers. But when you do that some people will get mad. There’s other pitchers in the league that do it, but, I don’t know, a lot of guys on our team don’t like Carpenter.” I don’t know how other players in MLB feel about Mr. Greinke, I’m not even going to glorify the thought with hitting up the googler to find out, but I am pretty sure that people in glass houses shouldn’t curveball any stones.
So, tonight, in the first game of the 2013 NLCS, the Cards faced the Greink-ster once again. This time, he’s wearing Dodger blue. Fanatastic moment of the game came in the 3rd inning, when Carlos Beltran did his best to wipe the smug grin off the face of Zack, in the form of a double to score two runs and tie up the score at 2. I got a little chuckle out of that, let me tell ya. Oh, and Joe Kelly, the same guy who was the exact opposite of smug during the pre-game press conference? He started the scoring by getting a single with two outs off of that same Mr. Greinke. I would like to refer to this as karma, but I don’t think it exactly fits the definition; you know what I mean.
Better moment than even that? Beltran throwing out Ellis at the plate. He called off Jay so that he could make the catch and throw the runner out at the plate. I will quote myself and say again, running against a Beltran throw from the outfield is about as smart as trying to steal second against Yadi. Dumb.
Best moment? When Beltran got the walk off RBI to close out those Dodgers in the 13th.
Bring on Kershaw and the rest of his lackies!
Go Cards!
