One Week Until Cape and All It Entails
Today makes one week until I move back to the wonderful town of Cape Girardeau to begin senior year #1 of college and start my internship with the Cape CVB. I won't lie to you all, I am excited as ever to be going back to Cape, yet my nerves are starting to kick in. I'm nervous about my class schedule as I will be taking some pretty tough upper-level courses and I'm a little nervous about my internship. My nerves with my internship are mainly because I have always had this "fear of failure", yet I could not ask for better people to work with this fall. I also look forward to meeting more and more people with the CVB and other businesses in Cape Girardeau. To sum it all up, my nerves also comes with double the amount of excitement and anticipation!!Take Me Out to the Brawlgame
So I've always been told that the biggest rivalry in the National League is between the Cardinals and the Cubs. I guess that's true, except in the summer of 2010. With all of the excitement of UFC and other MMA leagues in this country, focus was definitely shifted to the "main event" at Great American Ballpark last night. Rather than go into detail about what all went down, I'm going to assume that you, the reader, have a pretty good idea as to what happened. Replays of the fight can always be found at stlcardinals.com and reds.mlb.com . But I'm going to break-down who was at right and who was at wrong during last nights scuffle.
Right:
Yadier Molina: Let's be honest, if Brandon Phillips just threw verbal jabs at my team, why should he act all friendly around me and tap my shin guard. Not only that, but repeatedly tap the shin guard to instigate an exchange of words. Will Yadi be suspended by MLB, yes. But did Yadi stand up for the Cardinals, yes!
Scott Rolen: When thing's get heated between two teams, who better to make an attempt to calm down the other team's players than a player who spent seven years playing for the other team and has standing friendships with the current players. From the very beginning of the scuffle, Rolen ran out to pull Yadi aside and attempt to calm him down. Later, he attempted to calm down Carpenter which resulted in the bigger mess, but both him and Carpenter admitted it was only done to calm the situation. Some may say Rolen should be suspended for his role, which might be the end result, but he truly tried to calm the situation
Wrong:
Johnny Cueto: I won't waste too much time on this coward, but his coward-like kicking resulted in Jason LaRue suffering a concussion and possible broken ribs. And who knows what it could have done to Carpenter. Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch summed his thoughts as such:
"And though Carpenter was burning, I'm still laughing at this part: an adult athlete kicking during a fight, instead of squaring up like a man? Is that the best Cueto can do? Wow.
Brandon Phillips may have a word for that."
Tony LaRussa/Dusty Baker: Yes, I'm putting TLR at some fault. Rather than attempting to break up the scuffle to save his star players (and back-up catcher) from injury, he went after Dusty Baker to add another chapter to their long history of hostility. Dusty Baker should be held responsible as well for not only the on-field issue, but for his comments about the Cueto kicking ordeal. This quote comes from a column by John Fay of the Cincinatti Enquirer:
“They had him pinned up like a rat in corner,” Dusty Baker said. “It wasn’t pretty.”
So, since Cueto was pinned, it's okay to use your metal spikes as a weapon? Whatever Dusty, MLB will issue whatever punishment needs to be issued.
Brandon Phillips: The outright instigator. 'Nuff said.
As always, your comments are strongly encouraged. If you don't follow me on Twitter at @JMICHAELWILLIS, then you are missing out. . .not really but you should follow me anyways :)
JMICHAELWILLIS
