Just when you thought the feud between
Mark Teixeira and Vicente Padilla couldn’t get any nastier, it just did.
Padilla gave a Spanish-language
interview to NESN, the Boston Red Sox media outlet, in which he accused
Teixeira of mistreating his Latino teammates. For Padilla to turn a baseball
disagreement into a racial issue is so far out of bounds that it’s just not
right and makes me think the man has a couple of screws loose.
If Teixeira did threaten to hit Padilla
with a bat, which I seriously doubt, it was something said out of frustration and
anger over constantly getting hit in response to Padilla’s headhunting while
Padilla hid behind the safety of the designated hitter. It was not something
said to Padilla because Teixeira doesn’t like Latinos. Teixeira clearly does
not like Padilla (Tex took great pleasure out of his game-winning hit over
Padilla), but that isn’t because he is Latino. It’s because the guy is a coward
who doesn’t care about his teammates. I wonder how Frank Francisco, whom
Padilla accused Tex of also mistreating, feels about being dragged into this ugly
drama.
With the scrutiny the New York Yankees receive,
if there were any racial tensions between Teixeira and his teammates, we would
probably know about it. But in Tex’s 3 ½ years with the Yankees, there’s never
been a bad word said about him, anonymously or otherwise, by any of his teammates.
In fact, there’s only constant praise for what he brings to the club, even during his
offensive struggles.
Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine tried to laugh off the feud by
saying that Padilla hasn’t been headhunting this year, but that he has to get
back to that. I could understand a manager wanting to diffuse the situation,
but he doesn’t seem to be taking seriously Teixeira’s chief complaint: that
Padilla is going to end up seriously hurting someone if he doesn’t stop.
And Teixeira made a great point that Roger Goodell wouldn’t stand
for his football players intentionally trying to hurt other players. Witness
the stiff and justified punishments he handed out for Bounty-gate. Bud Selig
and Major League Baseball shouldn’t stand for it either. The next time Padilla
hits Teixeira, and there will be a next time, Selig should immediately suspend
Padilla for at least 10 games.
I have a serious problem with someone
who uses allegations of racism to justify his own bad behavior. Padilla is completely
out of control, but we already knew that, didn’t we?
No comments:
Post a Comment