I’ve read Richie Whitt’s post on Sportatorium from yesterday a couple times. It came after the Texas Rangers’ Sunday Night Baseball loss to the Yankees but before they bounced back against the Angels last night.
I’d like to think he’s being ironic when he says this, but I don’t think he is:
In Game 2, Colby Lewis is scheduled to start after missing his last regular turn in the rotation because — I’m not making this up — his wife, Jenny, was giving birth in California. To the couple’s second child. …
Don’t have kids of my own but I raised a step-son for eight years. I know all about sacrifice and love and how great children are. …
Departures? Totally get it because at a funeral you’re saying goodbye to someone for the last time. But an arrival is merely saying hello to someone you’ll see the rest of your life.
Dave Bush filled in for Lewis last week in Detroit and threw three scoreless innings of a game that Mark Lowe and the bullpen eventually coughed up. But that’s not the point. Baseball players are paid millions to play baseball. If that means “scheduling” births so they occur in the off-season, then so be it. Of the 365 days in a year, starting pitchers “work” maybe 40 of them, counting spring training and playoffs.
If it was a first child, maybe. But a second child causing a player to miss a game? Ludicrous.
