Bad sports, good sports: The agony of the walk-off grand slam

Posted on May 31st, 2010 by Alan Spoll

It’s a moment that every baseball player dreams about. Tenth inning, game tied at one, bases loaded, two outs. Hero time, right? Kendry Morales, a young first baseman for the Los Angeles Angels, found himself in this exact situation on Saturday. Morales is a promising player who is in only his second full major league season. He stepped to the plate to face Brandon League, a reliever for the Seattle Mariners. What happened next boggles the mind.

Swinging at the first pitch he saw, Morales launched the ball into the night. It cleared the wall in left-center field and the celebration was on. Morales rounded the bases as his teammates gathered at home plate to wait for him. As he approached the throng, he tossed his batting helmet and leaped toward the plate. Suddenly, the fairy-tale moment was over. He landed awkwardly and collapsed in pain. Instead of celebrating with his teammates, he was writhing in pain, having broken his leg during that challenged landing.

If you have ever watched a game that has ended with a walk-off home run, the scene is always an exciting but odd one. I am often amazed at the beating that is taken by the player who hits the home run as he reaches home plate. It’s great that the guys are excited and unafraid to show it. Sometimes it seems like professional athletes don’t care as much as the fans do. They are getting paid, regardless, right? So it is nice to see that the players still enjoy the game for what it is. Still, knowing how much money these guys make, should they really be beating the crap out of each other, risking injury, during these celebrations? I am certain that we are going to see some changes in what teams allow their players to do when celebrating a victory of this type. Injuries happen, sure, but something like this ranks right up there with the touchdown celebration injuries that we have occasionally seen in football.

Morales is expected to miss a large percentage of the rest of the season.

Bad sports, continued:

2) In more baseball injury news, David Huff, a pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, was hit in the head with a line drive off the bat of the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez. Check out the scary video here. Huff looks like he is going to be fine.

3) A former football player from the University of Pennsylvania was arrested on Wednesday as police seized an estimated $1.2 million worth of marijuana from a studio he owned where he taught mixed martial arts. Travis Roesler played for the Quakers in 2003. That’s an awful lot of pot. There was no mention of how much the junk food was worth that they must have also recovered.

Good sports:

1) A few weeks ago, I mentioned the perfect game thrown by Dallas Braden of the Oakland Athletics. That accomplishment was a surprise to virtually everybody. This past Saturday, Roy Halladay of the Phillies matched Braden’s perfection. Although it is Halladay’s first perfect game (and only the 20th in Major League history), hardly anyone is surprised. Halladay is simply the best pitcher in baseball.

2) Twice before (here and here), I have written about my admiration for Myron Rolle, the former Florida State football player who went on to become a Rhodes Scholar. Well, the newly drafted Tennessee Titan is at it again, this time donating significant money to help his new team’s home city recover from the devastating floods that hit Nashville in early May. He hasn’t even signed a professional contract yet.

3) If Kendry Morales had been playing against Gabe Gross and Oakland, perhaps he would have been spared the broken leg. Gross absolutely robbed Detroit’s Gerald Laird of a home run with a spectacular, over-the-wall catch. The most amazing part is how effortless it looked.

Bad Sports, Good Sports appears every Monday

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Alan Spoll

Alan Spoll is a software quality assurance director from the suburbs of Philadelphia where he lives with his wonderful wife and children. He has spent his entire life as a passionate fan of the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Penn State. Recent Phillies success aside, you will understand his natural negativity. Follow me on Twitter - @DocAlan02