If there is one thing that I love about professional athletes, it is there unbelievable propensity to compound an already embarrassing situation involving a self-induced injury and making it worse by coming up with half-witted lie in a futile effort to cover their ridiculous mishap. They never fail to bring a smile to our faces: “I slipped in the shower”; “I slept on it wrong”; “It was a gardening accident––I swear!”
In the case of New York Yankees ace A.J. Burnett, he didn’t take the time to at least come up with something original when team trainers questioned him about the cause of the lacerations on his hands; nope, Burnett went straight to the original save face line with an “I fell down the stairs” blast. That’s right, because who hasn’t tripped down a set of stairs and received major cuts across our palms? As it turns out, Burnett got those cuts on his palms when he slammed them into a clubhouse door in frustration in-between innings of his start on Saturday against the Rays. The Yanks hot-headed right-hander allowed four runs on four hits in two-plus innings before he went postal on a clubhouse door.
Memo to A.J. Burnett: the Yankees aren’t paying you over $16 mill a season to have you pitch a few bad innings against a division rival and then go and take out your frustrations by knifing up your own hands. Next time you don’t live up to your $82.5 million dollar contract, just have team captain Derek Jeter set up a designated Gatorade cooler, grab a piece up lumber and go to down on that bad boy. This way you don’t have to worry about wrecking your digits and getting major cuts on your palms. And remember to keep mind that the Yankees aren’t making an investment in you, they are making it in your arm. Maybe if you ever learn how to settle down on the mound there won’t be any reason to treat that arm like a wrecking ball.
photo credit: Erik Charlton
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