CLEVELAND- Long time Cleveland Indians fan, Brutus Mung, walked out of Progressive Field after Wednesday's game shaking his head. "Who is Matt LaPorta? Heck, who are any of these guys?"
Good question, Brutus. We had the same thought ourselves.
But belaying our judgement on these professional athletes, CONN conducted an investigation recently and the results were staggering. It turns out that nearly half (47%) of the roster spots for the Cleveland Indians were taken up by [literally] amateurs. Here is where we'll break it down for you:
The aforementioned Matt LaPorta's back story was that he was a minor league sensation, but after contacting AAA Columbus and AA Kingston, no one had ever heard of him. After our search turned up no results, we decided to take the issue to Indians GM Mark Shapiro.
"It's true, Matt has no major or minor league baseball experience" said Shapiro. "We thought we could hide it for a while because he looks like he should be good, and his name was marketable. But there just isn't any way we can justify his performance anymore."
But it didn't stop there. When asked if it had ever happened before, Shapiro was almost eager to talk.
"Are you kidding me? Half our lineup [is] full of [expletive deleted] amateurs!"
In addition to LaPorta, Trevor Crowe, Luis Valbuena, Austin Kearns, Lou Marson, and Mark Grudzielanek are all inexperienced. Marson and Kearns, however, have prior experience in the league.
"There's a rumor going around out there that Austin played for Washington last year" Shapiro said, "that's a bit of a misnomer. He was signed to their squad to fill a gap and due to injuries, actually managed to get on the field once or twice. I don't think he ever factored into a play or anything."
Marson was the same for Philadelphia. "We traded them our Cy Young award winning pitcher and got this dashing young man in return" Shapiro said with a twitch in his eye. We probed further and got more answers.
Luis Valbuena? "He's got a great baseball name. That's why we signed him"
Mark Grudzielanek? "He actually played Hot Stove when he was 12! That was all we needed to hear."
And it all makes perfect sense. Almost all of the under-performers for the year belong to this covert group of amateur professionals.
Hector Ambriz? "He's the nephew of my wife's good friend, so he was kind of a shoo-in."
Justin Masterson? "Oh, no... he's actually played before. He just kinda sucks right now."
When asked about how prevalent this tactic is around the league, Shapiro responded "I'm pretty sure we're the only ones who do it, but I'm sure when this news hits lots of teams will be jumping on board this trend."
-Perry Winkler
No comments:
Post a Comment