Random Off-Day Spewing

I knew there was a reason I hated Julian Tavarez.

I knew that when Tavarez hit Mike Piazza in the head that the first thing that popped into my head was "Figured it would be Tavarez".

What I needed was a reminder just as to why I wasn't surprised.

Well, thanks to Jaap Stijl, a blogger who wakes up at 5AM in the morning to watch the Mets (now that's dedication...I didn't know there were games at 5AM...I didn't know there was a 5AM!) because he resides in the United Kingdom, I have my reminder. He put together a great rap sheet on Tavarez. I couldn't have written it any better myself:

Julian Tavarez a sinkerball pitcher, maintained he lost command of a fastball he wanted to throw inside but unfortunately, his career is a highway littered with emotional outbursts and we know better than to believe him.

When he was with the SF Giants, he once drilled Oakland catcher Mike Macfarlane in the back because he'd been pounded for six hits and four runs in a third of an inning outing against the A's. He got into a fight with San Francisco third baseman Russ Davis, spin-kicked him during a spring training game for which he was suspended five games.

When he was with the Cubs, he was fined by them for making comments derogatory toward gays in San Francisco after getting showered with abuse by the fans there because they already hated him so much."Why should I care about the fans?" Tavarez notoriously said after the game against the Giants whilst with the Cubs. "They're a bunch of a**holes and faggots here."

And since he's been with the Cardinals, he has already suffered one 10-game suspension for getting caught with having a "foreign substance" on the bill of his cap. And in last season's playoffs against Houston, he broke his left hand after surrendering a homerun to none other than Carlos Beltran in Game 4 of the NLCS and punching the dugout phone when the inning was over. The pitch right after Beltran's homer he threw over Jeff Bagwell's head. He has had tantrums against umpires, punched dugout walls and should hope LaRussa doesn't send him out as a pinch hitter in today's game.

You know in England, "faggots" are actually meatballs...which I believe is Shingo Takatsu's change of pace pitch, (which in itself is a derisive term).

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It's worth noting that since Jeff Francoeur made the cover of SI, he's hitting .236 with 2 HR's and 7 RBI's in 15 games.

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This comment came recently from jdon:

The mets (intentionally not capitalized) went out and signed some good free agents this year but they still do not have an everyday player who will grab someone by the ears and shake him when he needs it. Instead they brought in the Cheshire Cat (Beltran). They need a serious personality transplant in the dugout. A Keith Hernandez type if you will. Any ideas? I don't care as much about chemistry as I do about accountability.

Personality?

Accountability?

Someone who will grab someone by the ears and shake him when he needs it?

There's only one man who I can think of who possesses all of those qualities:

...and I don't think he can hit a curve ball.