Major League Baseball doled out punishment after Sunday's bizarre bickerfest between the Tampa Bay Rays, namely star pitcher David Price, and umpire Tom Hallion.
A quick recap if you missed it: Price alleged Hallion yelled the F-word at him after Price didn't get a strike call. Hallion called Price a liar after the game. Price took to Twitter to say he wasn't lying and called Hallion a coward. Rays teammates, including the "normally mild-mannered" Jeremy Hellickson, sent tweets backing up Price's story.
Zack Greinke vs. Carlos Quentin this was not. This "he said-he said" was more reality TV drama than "Punch-Out." MLB, forced to referee, just fined everybody. The Tampa Bay Times reports Price, Hellickson and Matt More each incurred $1,000 fines for tweeting about the incident. Hallion was fined an undisclosed amount that the Times says is believed to be $1,000.
But here's where things get even more interesting. Now Price is mad at Major League Baseball. Again, from The Times:
"As many times as MLB asks us to tweet stuff for them, I find it kind if funny,'' Price said. "It's fine. I'll remember this next time they ask me to do something."
Ohhh! MLB you want access to those 150,000+ Twitter followers Price has? Uh-uh. Price told reporter Marc Topkin that he just wanted an apology for being called a liar.
"That's all I cared about,'' he said. "Whatever happened to Hallion, I just wanted an apology. I didn't want any money to come out of his pocket, I didn't want him to get fired or fined or suspended, I just wanted what I thought was fair to me and the rest of this team, and that was an apology.''
We'll have to wait and see if Price tweets about this again. It'll be his principles vs. his bank account.
Baseball is back. Don't miss anything.
Follow @MikeOz and @bigleaguestew, on Twitter, along with the BLS Facebook page.
No comments:
Post a Comment