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May 21, 2021

Now That He's Retired, Sabathia Is Against "Unwritten Rules" (He's Also A Hypocrite)

CC Sabathia thinks White Sox manager Tony La Russa is "fucking stupid". The former pitcher and 19-year veteran ripped La Russa over his comments after the Twins threw at one of his own players. 

On Monday, YermĂ­n Mercedes homered on a fat 3-0 pitch with his team up by 11 runs in the ninth inning. La Russa publicly endorsed the retaliation after apologizing to the Twins.

The shit is terrible. He shouldn't be fucking managing that team, and if you're not going to step up and have your player's back, what's the point of being the fucking manager of the White Sox? Shit is stupid as fuck . . . He's just so out of touch with the game . . . Tony La Russa is out of touch with the game. He should not be managing one of the best teams in the American League . . .

The fact that Tim Anderson, who is basically the captain of their team, had to go on Instagram and step up for his teammate, like, Yeah, the game wasn't over. If you're going to put a fucking position player in there to pitch, guess what? If he's going to lob shit over the plate, we going to fucking tee off. . . . If ya'll don't want to see people get embarrassed and you don't want to see position players pitch and people swing on 3-0 counts and all that shit, then make it a 10-run rule so the fucking game would be over and you don't have these stupid-ass unwritten rules.

Sabathia is absolutely right. And La Russa is an ugly, racist blight on the game of baseball. As Slate's Alex Kirshner wrote:

Any manager would be wrong to treat a player so callously, but La Russa doing it is outrageous, given how many times he's demonstrated his lack of moral authority on anything.

But Sabathia ripping baseball's "stupid-ass" unwritten rules? That's – what's the word? – interesting. And surprising.

Not all that long ago (August 2017), Sabathia was furious at the Red Sox for bunting on him twice within two weeks. He said they should apologize and, if they had an issue with his comments, he  vowed to fight them in center field.

Sabathia was annoyed that Andrew Benintendi bunted on him on August 19, in his first start since coming off the IL. Then on August 31, Eduardo Nunez bunted in the first inning. After the game, Sabathia was livid and said Nunez should apologize. Why? 

Because Sabathia was overweight and had bad knees and did not want to be forced to field his position. Because a man has to draw the line somewhere. Or as "CCC" put it:

They should want to go out and try to kick my butt. I just feel like they tried to take the weak road . . . Let's go, let's play, swing the bat. . . . It shows me what they've got over there. . . . I don't give a fuck about their reaction. I don't care what they have to say. I'm out there early every day. If they've got something to say, we can meet in center field.

Nunez wasn't having it, calling CC's reaction "a joke":

We know he has a bad knee. That's not my problem. . . . [I]f he has issues with bunting, they have to work on that. . . . I don't care if he's mad or not. . . . That's not my fault.

Also, back in 2015, Sabathia ripped Seattle's Kyle Seager for dropping down a bunt.


Sabathia retired after the 2019 season and since then he has apparently reversed his opinion on whether teams should help their opponents beat them by trying to lose on purpose. That's an improvement, I suppose. (Or maybe he was simply selfish the entire time and got pissed when teams tried various things to beat him.)

Regardless, CC is absolutely correct about La Russa in this case, but he is also a hypocrite who does not deserve to be listened to on this point until he acknowledges his blatant hypocrisy.

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