Boston Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett was suspended for 6 games on Monday, a swift action by Major League Baseball for the pitcher’s conduct in a game on Sunday afternoon. The punishment was also a repudiation of the vile, controversial and arrogant Joe West, an umpire who if not corrupt and working to undermine the integrity of the games he calls, sure LOOKS like the actor central casting would recommend were they called up to cast the part of a crooked umpire.
In the era of Tim Donaghy, no professional sport can take the risk of letting umpires play favorites. It was a refreshing justice meted out to the sociopathic Josh Beckett over his tantruming display of attempted headhunting. Major League Baseball took action over an incident that the umpires had assured us was taken care of.
It is a great day when two narcissists are smote down from on high. Beckett believes he is bigger than the game and can manipulate the pace of it with impunity over the batter waiting at the plate. He wants to control the runner and the batter and does not want such mind games taken out of his hands by a home plate umpire calling time. He wants to intimidate batters from ever calling time (with the knowledge that their helmets may get the Abreu treatment) so that he can watch the basepaths in a strategy to wear out the batter.
Joe West allowed Josh Beckett to approach the plate, enraged and shouting the fake "what did I do?" after he had clearly done something with Abreu simply waiting for an explanation, as non-confrontational as any player on the field. For West to allow Beckett to confront the other team’s manager with no punishment, this umpire reveals much about the psychology of a man from the South admiring a young Texan buck with no cause to discipline him in his naturally aggressive state. Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom may need to film Joe West rummaging through the sagebrush of the Confederacy if it ever teams up for a combined television show with To Catch A Predator.
Can another explanation besides “Country” Joe West’s lusting for a Son of the South be taken seriously now that Major League Baseball has handed down a harsh suspension and fine against Beckett, stepfathered on Sunday by a Scioscia-baiting, blind-to-Boston Joe West? Because if Joe West is not a Tim Donaghy bought and paid for by a bookie somewhere, another insidious addiction may be lurking at the heart of this controversey.