River Avenue Blues

River Ave. Blues » Shelley Duncan » Page 2

Yanks exile Shelley to AAA

by 24 Comments

Shelley Duncan, the once and former wunderkind, has been sent back to AAA. Alberto Gonzalez has been recalled to provide more flexibility off the bench over the next few weeks. As the Yanks are planning on holding on to both Chad Moeller and Jose Molina until they get to Pittsburgh, the timing on this move seems to suggest that Duncan will come up again when a third catcher goes down. Brett Gardner is, of coures, the wild card there.

And as an administrative note, if you’ve been trying to e-mail the three of us over the last two days, try again now. We were having some problems with our e-mail server that have since been fixed.

MLB issues ridiculous suspensions

by 20 Comments

Via a press release:

Shelley Duncan of the Yankees has been suspended for three games and fined an undisclosed amount for his violent and reckless actions, which incited the bench-clearing incident. Unless appealed, Duncan’s suspension is scheduled to begin on Monday, March 31st, when the Yankees host the Toronto Blue Jays in their first game of the 2008 Championship Season.

Jonny Gomes of the Rays has been suspended for two games and fined an undisclosed amount for his violent actions, which escalated the bench-clearing incident. Unless appealed, the suspension of Gomes is scheduled to begin on Monday, March 31st, when the Rays play at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore in their first game of the 2008 Championship Season.

Melky Cabrera of the Yankees has been suspended for three games and fined an undisclosed amount for his violent and aggressive actions during the incident. Unless appealed, Cabrera’s suspension is scheduled to begin on Monday, March 31st.

So Jonny Gomes gets two games for sprinting in from right field and escalating the incident while Duncan and Melky get three. That seems wrong to me.

In related news, Shelley Duncan says he will continue his aggressive play even while the Yankee veterans have asked him to tone it down. This could become an issue over the course of the season, and it will test Joe Girardi’s abilities to keep his players in line.

Speculation is that the Yanks will go with an outfield of Matsui in left and Damon in center with Giambi DHing on Opening Day. I have a feeling the Yanks may figure out a way to work Brett Gardner into that lineup instead, but we’ll see. Melky, have you ever heard of Wally Pipp? Careful out there with those punches.

Idle musings of an idle mind on Shelley

by 17 Comments

So after watching this clip, I’m struck by something Shelley Duncan did. To me, it appears as though he was gunning for second base out of the box with the intent to slide in hard. My question then to the rhetorical you then is this: Was Shelley aiming to start something from the crack of the bat? And does it matter? MLB’s discipline guru Bob Watson might think it does.

Bad Shelley

by 89 Comments

Update: I’m not upset about the dissenting in this post…just wanted to note that a couple of paragraphs got cut out in the middle because I misread a quote attributed to Gomes which I originally has as Shelley’s words. So that kinda took the air out of that balloon.

PeteAbe told us this afternoon that Shelley Duncan slid into Akinori Iwamura with his right spike high. Okay, I thought. No big deal. No, you don’t want your guys taking out other guys’ knees at this time of year, but from the description, it seemed harmless. In fact, I even privately chastised Jonny Gomes for running in from right field. But then I saw this pic:


(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

There’s a difference between sliding with your spikes high and sending your sole towards another man’s family jewels (I’ve always loved that euphemism, family jewels). So I pretty much agree with what B.J. Upton said: “Just a flat-out dirty play. Period.”

As if things couldn’t get worse, Tough Guy Gomes ran in from right field:


(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

“I probably could have done a lot of things worse, but it is a baseball field and there’s fans and kids watching,” said Gomes. “I just had to let him know, that’s not going to fly with me on the field.”

Yeah, it’s nice to see the players fired up. But this needs to end now. It really should have ended after Heath Phillips drilled Evan Longoria. But since we’re far past that point, we need Girardi and Maddon to jointly say “enough.”