Monday, September 26, 2011

Jayson Werth Deserves Suspension

Baseball and even non-baseball fans remember when Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Randall Simon hit a woman wearing an Italian sausage costume with his bat during the Milwaukee Brewers' costume race in 2003. Major League Baseball suspended Simon for three games and fined him $2,000. Additionally, Simon was fined $432 and cited by the sheriff's department for disorderly conduct.

On Saturday afternoon, Washington Nationals outfielder Jayson Werth incorporated himself into the Presidents race. Take a look:



Werth actually shoved Thomas Jefferson to the ground. Well, not the actual Thomas Jefferson since he would be 268 years old, but the person in the Jefferson costume. While the announcers and fans all took this as a fun attempt to let Teddy Roosevelt win, take a look at this second video from the folks at Let Teddy Win:



You can see Werth start to take Jefferson down at the 45 second mark. Once Jefferson is on the ground, Werth pushes him again. At 1:10, Werth attempts to kick/trip Jefferson.

According to Let Teddy Win, this "was not scripted by the Nationals, and caught the team’s in-game entertainment and mascot team by surprise." Essentially, this was a premeditated attack that was not planned by the team or major league baseball. Therefore, why isn't Werth subject to the same punishment as Simon?

Adam Kilgore of The Washington Post has more about Werth and the race. This was clearly premeditated which I don't think you can say about the Simon incident.

1 comment:

Blinds Pittsburgh said...

When I intently watched the vid, it seems like, it was more than just for fun which was the thing that appeared to the audience and fans. Of course, it's really inappropriate to divulge the whole scene. But there's actually damage control in the incident.