The Blind and the Damned on Reality TV
Monday, May 1, 2006 at 04:04PM 
The minor league umpires announced the proposed settlement of their strike a day too late for Delmon Young.
The future Terror of Tampa Town, who had been annointed sun king by both Baseball America and MiLB.com last season as the No. 1 player in the minors mid-season, was topping all lists this Spring of not only Devil Rays prospects, but all minor leaguers.
Delmon made No. 2 in the Minor League News MLN FAB50 Baseball 2005 rankings last year, up from No. 10 in the 2004 rankings. Oh, the grief I took from a number of fans and the guys over at the temple of baseball knowledge, Baseball America.
As I noted in a past Editor's RAVE, "Punked by Baseball America," we apparently aren't smart enough to be a real baseball rag because we cover other sports. Sorry SI, I guess that means you too. According to the Gospel of Manuel, BA's head honcho, you have to be a focused one sport magazine like BA to be right. Except of course, when you're not.
We picked Felix Hernandez as No. 1 last year. You know Felix... You saw him on the March cover of ESPN®, the Magazine, sporting a bit more bling than he had when we wrote him up last June, but otherwise the same pitching phenom. Where is Delmon Young right now? Catching most of the season from a Lazy Boy in Camarillo, California.
In case you missed the now infamous video, you can catch it here. Delmon went off on one of the rent-a-umps filling in for the striking umpires in a Durham Bulls game against the Pawsox (Pawtucket Red Sox) in Pawtucket last week.
After what looked like a pretty good call on a strike three pitch, he said something to the umpire and walked off the field. It got the umpire pissed off enough to throw him out of the game. Delmon got mad, and tossed his bat, striking the umpire in what appeared to be the chest.
He was given a swift and "indefinite" suspension by Randy Mobley, the president of the Triple-A class International League where the Devil Rays prospect plays (See our article: DEVIL RAY). The team backed up the league on the call. His future with both the Devil Rays and any possibility as a trade now becomes geometrically more difficult.
The spontaneous combustion of Delmon Young's career is part temper, part second-rate officiating, and part the age of television finally percolating down to the growing fan base of the minor leagues.
The Mighty Mr. Young
Young was the Tampa Bay Devil Rays number one pick in the 2003 June MLB draft. He is part of a passel of premium prospects that the D-Rays hold in inventory that have yet to fulfill their lofty signing bonuses. BJ Upton, who himself has been a number one MLN FAB50 prospect (No. 3 in 2005 behind Young), has yet to ignite at the major league level. Home grown D-Ray players from Rocco Baldelli on down to the minors should be playing championship ball as a unit. Instead they're scattered between Tampa Bay and Durham with quixotic records, calling into question Lou Pinella's stewardship of some of the best rookie talent to be aggregated in any farm system.
Former Bulls skipper Bill Evers turned out championship clubs with Durham with these kids, so why can't Lou get them to spark in the minors? That may have been a fractional reason to bring Evers up to the big league as a coach this season. Someone needs to help the club's substantial investment pan out.
The problem is that he is no longer shepherd of the flock in Durham, where the mercurial Mr. Young occupies a roster slot. It is unlikely that Young would try that stunt on Evers, who was well aware of his enfant terrible when he came up to the Triple-A. Delmon had a run-in with a Southern League umpire at Double-A that landed him a three game suspension.
I meet a lot of nice young men at this gig, but I can't say that Delmon is one of them. I didn't get enough time to get to know him personally. He has a rather large wall that makes that difficult. It could be a manifestation of shyness. More likely though, is that he has a hard time getting his body and ego into compact cars. On the arrogant scale of one to Barry, he ranks in just below the combative Bonds.
The difference is that Delmon is 690+ major league home runs shy of being able to cop any kind of 'tude. Even Barry on his worst day would never lose it like that and pop an umpire with a bat.
How bad is this? Indefinite suspension is pretty charitable. Mandatory counseling, and a few hundred hours of community service this season, along with a personal apology to the rent-a-ump, would be nice additions. Bud Light might even drop Delmon a line suggesting that the Comissioner's Office will suspend him permanently for any other further outbursts like this occur during the remainder of his career.
Red Tipped Cane. Will Travel.
The replacement umpires, filling in for the striking members of the Association of Minor League Umpires (AMLU), are also part of the problem. Their officiating continues to be a source of irritation for minor league players and managers alike. Even if these guys called the plate like MLB umps, the very fact that they are rent-a-umps generates a certain level of disrespect from the players, something akin to sharks smelling blood in the water.
A guy of Delmon's size can try to throw his weight around a bit with a rent-a-ump because there is no reprisal. Once the strike is over these guys go back to the colleges and Babe Ruth ball, the places from where they crawled out.
Not that this should give Delmon, or anyone the right to take a shot at them with an overpriced bit of revolving lumber. Still, seeing as how the un-seeing rejected the 12% pay hike offered by MiLB today, incidents of this kind may be more frequent over the season if Minor League Baseball and the AMLU don't come to terms soon. Thus far, there are no further negotiations are scheduled.
Tankin' on the Tube.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, video is total silence. Baseball junkie or newbie, you can't watch that video without just sitting there a bit dumbfounded. Well, maybe a 'holy' and an expletive or two following the silence. Any way that you slice it, Delmon crossed a very big line which television amplifies like a loud speaker.
The minors aren't so minor anymore. The bat felt 'round the world was all over the internet. Even the sleepy little paper here in Boca Raton, Florida picked up the story from the AP feed. Television is here, and minor league players and their agents alike should take Delmon's debut as official notice that chinks in the maturity armor will show up quickly and loudly.
Grow Up Young.
Maturity is the x-factor for which there is no real baseball statistic. Fantasy leaguers and avid fans can sit and look at the numbers and spout off about how much better player a is than player b. Yet is it the space between the ears, not on the field, that makes up that last component that says major league versus career minor leaguer.
The word on Delmon on the not-for-publication channel has been that maturity was a significant roadblock to his advancement. Several scouts picked it up last season in our FAB50 notes. One went even so far as to draw a circle around the word "'Roids" with a question mark, wondering if perhaps that might be the problem. All of that is total supposition without a shred of foundation, though, so we don't report it, or put it into our analysis in something like the FAB50. Still, this kind of temper tantrum on the field that could have generated a severe injury is coming from a highly paid, supposedly professional athlete. It opens the door to all of the question marks about his maturity and character being voiced more loudly. It affects his value as a prospect significantly.
If Delmon Young wants a major league career, he is going to have to work out the entire summer. Not on his body, but on his mind and character. He has a God-given talent, but it is not enough. The new baseball is trying to attract fans to the game, not the drugs or the violence.
If he can be a man of character, and not an out of control, arrogant little boy in a man's body, he should be welcomed back into the game. If not, he should be banned permanently. No white-wash apology from his agent is going to make it better.
Without some real change, it will happen again. The next umpire or coach may not be so lucky.
Brian Ross
Delmon Young was handed a gift, all pretty with baseball wrapping paper and blue bows: A 50 game suspension without pay and 50 hours of community service. (See the International League Press Release on MLN - The Raw Feed).
“The goal in reviewing this very serious matter was to arrive at a fair and just action against Mr. Young. With the 50 game suspension, longer than any other uncovered in the League’s 123-year history, and the significant fine as a result of the loss of salary, I believe this has been accomplished,” said IL president Randy Mobley, who had placed young on "indefinite" suspension until he could figure out how to write up the parking ticket on this one.
The 50 game suspension is substantial in a world where top draft picks more often than not draw wrist slaps. It should be more in theory, less in what this costs the D-Rays keeping him off-line. I can live with this.
I think what is really bugging me is the 50 hours of community service.
It will be with the Durham Bulls Youth Athletic League and the Miracle League of Gulf Beaches, the release goes on to say. While those are both fine public service organizations for players in good standing, they should never be used for a player in Delmon's position.
This means that Delmon stays in the neighborhood for the year. He continues to work out, and hang with the boys from the Bulls. When my kids are bad, they go to their rooms to be by themselves for a while. I don't punish them by saying, "I'll make you pick up trash for ten minutes, then go up to your room and think about what you've done while you're playing X-Box with your brothers and sisters."
For one thing, Delmon's community service is WEAK. 50 hours is one week out of the several months that he is going to be sidelined. His community service time should have been longer to make the punishment really fit the crime.
That bat took about ten revolutions. How about 10 hours per rotation? That's at least 100 hours of community time, which will mean that he has to take a few days out of each week on the 50 gamer and actually do some community service throughout.
Keeping him with the club is a joke. The Devil Rays press release states: "We expect Delmon will resume his training at our minor league complex later this week." You can just feel the suffering, can't you?
I used to live in Delmon's home town. There are a lot of worthy charities in Camarillo, California. SEND HIM HOME. Let his moms remind him for the next three months of what an amazing BONEHEAD he was for losing his cool and jeopardizing his career. Nothing says tough love like mom. Someone who tosses a bat in anger at an official does not belong in the company of professional baseball players during the time of their suspension. A BIG line was crossed. Making him take his community service away from the club is not for Delmon, who doesn't really give a damn. It should send a very loud message to other hot-headed players that you won't benefit from the company of your peers if you screw up that badly.
Mobley obviously wants to send a loud clear message very softly. The Devil Rays want their star prospect to have a shot at making the major league roster by the end of the season. "During this investigation, the Rays worked closely with the Delmon and the International League on the community service component of Delmon’s suspension," reads the D-Rays release. I'll bet they did. Talked it right down to 50 hours in the privacy of their operations, too. Randy is a great guy in a tough situation: How do you stand up up and say no to your MLB masters?
The 123 year bit was a nice touch. Randy told me at last year's AAA All-Star shindig in Sacramento that the reason that the IL doesn't have a Hall of Fame is that records of the storied league are a bit hard to come by for stretches of time. The century plus line though does lend a certain air of gravitas to the proceedings, even if there isn't much substance to it.
If you had a Judge Landis as the Commish, Delmon wouldn't come up for the rest of this season, or ever, a punishment that the Commissioner of Baseball can mete out beyond the International League sanctions. I could call on Bud Light to develop the stones to cancel Young's MLB ticket for the year, but they'd have to rush me to the hospital with severe laughing cramps. I'm already a bit weepy just typing this. Selig has lots of political issues with the D-Rays that he doesn't want tangled in Delmon Young's mess.
Of course, as we speak, er, type, Barry Bonds could be breaking Babe Ruth's record, turning most of recorded sports history into a steroid-altered joke, so really, in the great scheme of things, Delmon should count his lucky stars that the system is corrupted to his kind of behavior.
The stars that the next umpire will be counting though may be more painful and perhaps permanent.
The one comforting thing may have come in Delmon Young's press conference today. When asked if he would get any kind of counseling off the field, Young replied:
"I have a support system and everything. I'm getting through the situation. I just have a guy I talk to to help me get through the situation."
There, in the muttered mea culpas, was a hint that the Devil Rays may be smart enough to protect their investment with a little quiet anger management. Counseling is such an ugly word. You have a guy. He helps you get through the situation.
Young is a big talent, a big investment. Hopefully his waltz through his most recent timber toss will be enough to sober him up.
The full transcript of Young's interview with the media can be seen at: http://www.minorleaguenews.com/rawfeed/html/2006/05/09/06.html
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (2)
In my opinion Young needs to check his ego and attitude at the clubhouse door. There is no excuse for what he did even if it was a bad call.
During his suspension I hope he thinks long and hard about what he did to himself as a player, the team he plays for and the organization he represents.
What doesn't happen is some overgrown adolescent throwing a weapon at an umpire.
He got off light with only 50 games. You absolutely DO NOT assault an official! Ever. Under ANY circumstance.
If it were me, he'd be sitting at home until Spring Training 2007.