I had the pleasure of witnessing the 2012 HR Derby in Kansas City last night and I have to say that the Robinson Cano exhibition was quite an experience. For those who don't know the background of the situation or have been living under a rock Cano made a humongous gaffe when he stated that he would include a Kansas City Royal in the HR Derby and then chose not to do so. He should have never stated that he would include a Royal in the first place, and once he did he darn sure should have followed through with it.
Again for those who have been living under a rock Kansas City has not hosted an All Star Game in 40 years and since the early 90's it has stuggled to field a competitive baseball team. That doesn't mean that Kansas City doesn't love the Royals or that the city doesn't have a tremendous love for baseball and its history in Kansas City. The truth is quite the contrary. Kansas City is a fantasticly loyal sports town and it has a deep love for its athletes. Billy Butler is a Royal through and through. He came up through the farm system and is a career .296 hitter with 90 career home runs (more than Trumbo, McCutchen, Gonzalez) and he is having his best HR season as a pro with 16 (more than Prince Fielder and Matt Kemp) in the first half in 2012. He is a no brainer choice for inclusion in the HR Derby especially when the person choosing the team says he is going to include the hometown player.
So about last night. I was in line for food when the teams were introduced. I was pleased to hear the loud applause when Carlos Beltran was introduced. Rock dwellers, Beltran came up with the Royals and played 6 1/2 season in Kansas City. He will always be a Royal and the crowd recognized that. Other players were politely applauded. Cano was loudly booed. I chuckled.
The event began. Beltran had a solid round. Bautista had a great first round. Trumbo and Fielder hit a few real bombs. Gonzalez, McCutchen and Kemp were all together unimpressive. As soon as Kemp made his final out the crescendo began. BILLY BUTLER clap-clap-clap,clap, clap and repeat. Pretty loud and relatively in unison. Impressive. Then Cano stepped up to the plate and boos reigned down mightily. Then the first out, a foul ball back to the screen, RAUCOUS APPLAUSE and ROAR. Then BOOS. Then another out, ROAR, then BOOS. Out after out the exchange between BOOS and ROARS mixed up with the BILLY BUTLER cheer. It was absolutely a blast and it was absolutely justified.
Long live justified schadenfreude.
Comments
Its cool that you were there last night and from what I have read, the fans were relentless with the Cano stuff. Personally I could care less about Cano and the Home Run Derby in general. To me even the All-Star game is pretty lame. Every team should not have a representative. The game also should not have any bearing on the World Series whatsoever.
I get that you are a fan but calling the decision to include Butler a "no-brainer" for Cano is a gigantic stretch in my opinion. He could only pick three guys to try and win a contest and I think a case can easily be made for all 3 ahead of Butler. You could even argue Adam Dunn (25 HR) and Adam Jones (20) would've been better choices than Butler.
Bautista has 27 HR's so far and is known HR machine. No argument in my mind.
Fielder is a 2-time winner of the HR Derby and while he did have one less HR than Butler at the break, ask any manager/player (non-Royal player, that is) in baseball if they'd want Butler or Fielder at the dish when a HR was needed and I think we know who would be the overwhelming choice. No argument in my mind.
Trumbo is having a fine season with 22 HR compared to Butler's 16 and I'm pretty sure his power stats like Slugging % are also significantly higher. Additionally, I think Trumbo backed up being chosen with his power display last night.
Don't get wrong, I appreciate your fandom and certainly value your opinions on all things Ohio State but my take is that the fans were putting passion before intelligence last night by booing Cano to that level.
Admittedly, I'm a Yankee fan but I was actually embarrassed for the Royals organiziation. Cano is a class act. If he said he would take a Royal and didn't, that's unfortunate, but the reaction was simply way over the top in my mind. No way he did something like that maliciously.
Thanks for the response. My best one is that you simply had to be there. The momentum just built and built with each out. The crowd was clearly a factor and that made it all the more fun.
vacuuming sucks
I kind of see both sides to this. It was certainly a bit awkward, but the boos seemed somewhat lighthearted (if that is possible), ie not the way that Cleveland fans boo Lebron or Red Sox fans boo ARod. Cano probably should have included him (especially after indicating he would) and frankly I don't mind an unwritten rule that if the home team has someone half qualified that they are guaranteed to be picked. But I had a similar reaction to Maestro and just thought it was kind of funny even though I am a semi-Yankee fan thanks to all of my trips to Clippers games as a kid.
From Boston, and thought baseball was the center of the sporting universe prior to my time at OSU. Then I went to an OSU game, and baseball hasn't been on my radar since.
McCutchen has my nod for MVP so far.
"You win with people." - Woody Hayes
Well said Chris
The overall lack of Adam Dunn made me a sad panda.
4-6 seconds from point A to point B and when you get to point B, be pissed off
Talk about "striking out", eh?
I feel your pain, he used to be a Red.
Not pain this year. He's doing exactly what the Sox need him to. Walking and hitting los jonrunes. He strikes out a ton but you are ok with it when he is hitting the ball out of the park. With the way Konerko, Rios, and AJ are hitting, Dunn is fitting perfectly in the lineup, .214 average included.
4-6 seconds from point A to point B and when you get to point B, be pissed off
My favorite Adam Dunn memory was a game where he got hit twice by pitches. After the second time, he slowly took off his gloves and started walking toward the mound. He soon broke into a full sprint and the catcher dove and made a shoestring tackle of him before he could get to the pitcher (he'd have leveled him, too; guy used to play quarterback), prompting a bench-clearing brawl.
4-6 seconds from point A to point B and when you get to point B, be pissed off
Honestly, I hate the Yankees and their bandwagon fans, so I absolutely loved the booing of Cano.
KC can keep booing as loud as they like...Cano will have a ring by seasons end and KC will remain a baseball punchline
Edit: ANOTHER ring
If Denard Robinson isn't careful with spooning all that food into his mouth, he's going to end up lookin' like Whoopi Goldberg
I also like how you call people that do not know the history or news of crappy KC baseball rock dwellers.
I think it's pretty universally known that the Royals have been one of the most losing franchises in all of professional sports for quite some time now.
vacuuming sucks