What, They Don't Have Advance Scouts In The National League?

I love Torii Hunter. He’s a genuinely fine character, and he had a tremendous game last night against the Diamondbacks. But, my God, why would anybody in their right mind throw Hunter a strike, let alone a hanging breaking ball?

The man is up there to swing the bat, and he’s not exactly what I guess I’ll call particular, if you know what I’m saying, and I think you do.

He’s also an entertaining and frequently confounding spazz on the base paths, and though everybody seems to want to give him credit for stealing a run on pure hustle last night, it might be worth pointing out that he could just as easily have been out twice. He certainly gave Arizona two perfectly good opportunities to nail his ass, and they simply couldn’t get the job done.

Having to watch the Twins in Arizona the next two nights gives me an opportunity to recycle one of my enduring gripes about the game. This is a slightly edited version of something I wrote last year, but it’s as relevant as ever:

One of the most reliable atrocities in Major League baseball is the wholly inexcusable batting stance of Arizona’s Craig Counsell. There have been some terrible batting stances over the years, but there has never been a stance that was such an affront to the dignity of the game as Counsell’s baroque sideshow. The man looks like a hemorhaging egret at the plate, and it takes every ounce in my diminishing reserves of self-restraint to keep me from removing my shirt, climbing over the railing, and tackling Counsell in the on-deck circle.

I’m not going to do that, and I’d discourage even the drunkest among you from doing that, even though I will nonetheless continue to insist that I –or the drunkest among you– would nonetheless be providing a tremendous public service if we were to do so.

That’s not our job, though. That is the job of Bud Selig, and the fact that Counsell has been allowed to continue to insult baseball fans everywhere –and to provide such a terrible example to young players all over the country– with his ridiculous stance is just one more example of Selig’s miserable failure as a commissioner. Forget about steroids, for God’s sake, if Selig is truly interested in preserving the integrity of the game he professes to love he would ban Counsell for life until he repents and learns to stand at the plate like a reasonably normal human being.

It would be one thing is there was a single shred of evidence that Counsell’s stance was at all efficacious, but no such evidence exists. This scrawny little stain on the game is a career .265 hitter, with a whopping total of 17 homeruns in over 2000 at bats. So he’s clearly not up there to hit; Counsell’s vogueing, is what he’s doing, and his stance is obviously just a mediocrity’s desperate attempt to get attention. Why he’s not quick-pitched every time he goes into his spastic contortions is beyond me. A few judiciously placed fastballs in the ribs would put an end to his nonsense in a hurry.

I hope you will join me in condemning this terrible man and the damage he is doing to the game’s increasingly fragile aesthetics. Write to the commissioner. Boo Counsell every time he comes to the plate. Boycott the Arizona Diamondbacks until they do the right thing and give the man the walking papers he so richly deserves. But please, I’m begging you, do something. I can’t stand it anymore.