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Josh Beckett shows off his classless side

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Blackout

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Beckett vs. Howard? They're coolposted: Sunday, March 26, 2006

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- There aren't many places you're less likely to see a brawl break out than a spring-training game on a leisurely Sunday afternoon.

Maybe at a synchronized-swimming meet (I assume that synchronized-swimming conducts "meets," anyway. If not, my apologies to synchronized swimmers everywhere).

Possibly at International Peace Bureau Headquarters (again, I assume they have headquarters).

Almost certainly at a get-together of the College of Cardinals (and here, I'm trying not to assume anything).

But there I was Sunday, watching Josh Beckett duel the hottest hitter in Florida, Ryan Howard, at a Red Sox-Phillies game, when whaddaya know -- we almost had an episode of WWE Smackdown break out.

It seemed pretty innocent for a second there. After squashing a sixth-inning fastball from Beckett, a shot that looked, for an instant, as if it might come down in Georgia, Howard took a few moments to admire it.

But a 15-mph breeze had other ideas. So the baseball shifted into reverse and wound up floating into the glove of center fielder Adam Stern a step in front of the warning track.

Then Beckett's mouth began moving. Whereupon Howard, because he didn't have time to hire a lawyer, began defending himself as he jogged past the mound. And ... well ... uh-oh.

After some screaming and gyrating, Beckett calmed down enough to finish the inning, ending his day's work. But only the pitching part of his day was finished.

Instead of gathering up his stuff and strolling down the tunnel, he saw Howard heading out to play first base -- and resumed the, um, conversation.

Howard turned and stared. Then he took one step. Then two steps. Then six steps toward the dugout. Then he whipped off his first-base mitt and buried it into the grass.

And even if you're not at a hockey game, you know that's still the national symbol for: "Gentlemen, empty your benches and bullpens."

So 70 players and coaches stopped by to join them for a fun-filled debate on baseball etiquette, unwritten rules and, if my lip-reading skills haven't diminished, some serious NCAA pool trash-talking.

Then it was all over. No runs. No hits. No haymakers. No ejections. At least it sure as heck livened up the day.

But sorting out what had just gone on here was the job of your fast-charging media throngs, so off we went.

First stop: Beckett.

Let me say before I present this guy's version that Josh Beckett is one of the most competitive baseball players I've ever met. He's also a guy who loves what he does as much as any baseball player I've ever talked to.

So if his volcano spews in a spring-training game, it's only because he's almost as emotionally invested in that game as he is when it's May 19 in Philadelphia.

And Beckett left no doubt he was definitely emotionally invested in this one.

"I'm kind of about respecting the game," he said. "Even if it is a home run, I don't think [admiring it] is the right thing to do. I didn't think it was the right thing to do, so I'm not the type of guy to not say anything. That's where it kind of started."

Beckett made it clear early on that he never intended to do any Brett "Hit Man" Hart imitations. He was just performing what he hoped would be a valuable educational service.

"I didn't want to fight the guy," he said. "I kind of wanted to make a point -- that you look like a jackass whenever you hit a ball like that and you're out."

Had he used that word "jackass" to Howard -- who is the approximate size of Mount Kilimanjaro -- there's no telling what type of mayhem might have ensued. But Beckett said the only synonym he could recall using on the field was "idiot."

Asked if there was some history between him and Howard that no one else was aware of, Beckett said: "He didn't do that last year, when he won [NL] Rookie of the Year and hit a bunch of home runs ... so I don't know. I guess you get one year in the big leagues and things just change."

After the throng departed, Beckett said he never meant to set off the Battle of Clearwater. He was just hoping Howard would get the message -- and that he'd even be happy to talk to Howard when the two teams meet again next weekend in Philadelphia.

"Well," I said, "I have a feeling you two won't be having a beer together."

But as someone who has watched a lot of Ryan Howard, I don't recall that he'd ever done any previous Reggie Jackson look-at-me acts after hitting any previous bombs, whether they landed on the warning track or in some South Philadelphian's family room. So something just didn't compute here.

And Howard was thinking the same thing, as it turned out.

"I hit it and ... I had no clue where the ball was, so I was trying to find it," said the Phillies' first baseman, a man who leads the planet in spring-training homers, with 10. "So maybe he mistook me for trying to [showboat] it or whatnot."

Yeah, good guess. And we don't mean the "whatnot." But Howard has a gentle-giant rep. And he tried his best to live up to it, with enough peacekeeping gestures to qualify him as our next U.N. ambassador.

On the other hand, we couldn't help but mention, he was the one who threw that glove.

"Yeah," he said. "Just a natural reaction, I guess."

The trash was not exactly flowing at his end, in other words. He was so conciliatory, in fact, that when Beckett found out later what Howard's version of all this was, he suspended all use of the term "jackass."

"It wasn't a deal where I hate him or anything like that," Beckett said. "I just didn't like him in that moment. I probably handled it wrong."

Told that Howard said he harbored "no hard feelings," Beckett replied: "Neither do I. So maybe we will have a beer in Philadelphia."

Well, it beats the alternative, anyway. Howard said later he has never been involved in a brawl in any baseball game he has ever played. But I know this: I wouldn't want to be on the other end if he ever does decide to see if he has any Mike Tyson in him.

And clearly, I'm not alone there.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona was asked afterward if he was getting a little nervous when Beckett and Howard started closing in on each other in front of the dugout.

"I wasn't worried about that," Francona confessed, chuckling. "I was just worried that he [Howard] got close to me. He's a big man."

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Garb

Garb

Posted
Posted

Speaking of classless.....

A very wise man said to me that everyone makes mistakes and that people should not be judged soley on their mistakes. That said, this is Red Sox/ Yankees ..... so we can all throw that touchy-feely stuff out the window.;)

So, again, back to classless:

Randy Johnson is suing an ex-lover for paid child support payments. It appears that Randy Johnson has a secret 16 year old daughter from a romance that occured before he was married. Randy Johnson has not only kept this daughter a secret, but he feels that now that she is 16 years old, she no longer needs financial support. I guess he needs every penny of those millions he makes to feed his "real" family. :rolleyes:

Nice, classy guy.

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Thor99

Thor99

Posted
Posted
Speaking of classless.....

A very wise man said to me that everyone makes mistakes and that people should not be judged soley on their mistakes. That said, this is Red Sox/ Yankees ..... so we can all throw that touchy-feely stuff out the window.;)

So, again, back to classless:

Randy Johnson is suing an ex-lover for paid child support payments. It appears that Randy Johnson has a secret 16 year old daughter from a romance that occured before he was married. Randy Johnson has not only kept this daughter a secret, but he feels that now that she is 16 years old, she no longer needs financial support. I guess he needs every penny of those millions he makes to feed his "real" family. :rolleyes:

Nice, classy guy.

But, he's a Yankee. He exudes class. She must have had it coming, that bitch.

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Matt39

Matt39

Posted
Posted
Speaking of classless.....

A very wise man said to me that everyone makes mistakes and that people should not be judged soley on their mistakes. That said, this is Red Sox/ Yankees ..... so we can all throw that touchy-feely stuff out the window.;)

So, again, back to classless:

Randy Johnson is suing an ex-lover for paid child support payments. It appears that Randy Johnson has a secret 16 year old daughter from a romance that occured before he was married. Randy Johnson has not only kept this daughter a secret, but he feels that now that she is 16 years old, she no longer needs financial support. I guess he needs every penny of those millions he makes to feed his "real" family. :rolleyes:

Nice, classy guy.

*coughLarryBirdcough*

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