Dumb In Dallas

I'm not quite sure which comment (stereotype?) applies more, "men are stupid" or "Dallas sucks." (Okay, "Dallas sucks" is not a stereotype, at least when it comes to the Cowboys.) A blogger for a weekly paper called the Dallas Observer took Texas Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis to task for leaving the team to be with his wife, who gave birth to the couple's second child. Lewis missed a start. The Observer writer, Richie Whitt, wrote:

Don’t have kids of my own but I raised a step-son for eight years. I know all about sacrifice and love and how great children are.

But a pitcher missing one of maybe 30 starts? And it’s all kosher because of Major League Baseball’s new paternity leave rule?

Follow me this way to some confusion.

Imagine if Jason Witten missed a game to attend the birth of a child. It’s just, I dunno, weird. Wrong even.

The blog Hay Ladies! did an excellent job in responding to Whitt's ridiculous commentary. There's only one thing I feel the need to add: many, many baseball players have missed games when their wives had a baby. It's been going on for a long time, especially since a flight can get a player home in hours. It's not like the old days when teams traveled by train. The only new angle to this particular story is that Major League Baseball now has a paternity leave rule that allows teams to add a player to the roster for a 24-72 hour period. The Rangers wanted an extra pitcher, so they used the rule to call up an pitcher from the minors. Lewis became the first player to be placed on the new paternity leave list. (There's been a bereavement list for a few years now, for serious illnesses or deaths of immediate family members.)

This shouldn't have been a big deal. Actually, it isn't a big deal, except to this Dallas neanderthal and those who "think" like him.

Hat tip to one of my Twitter followers, @jboschan, who posted the link to the Hay Ladies! blog.

My 2010 World Series Thoughts

Okay, so I didn't think either team would get to this point. That doesn't mean anything except that postseason experience isn't always so important. That won't come into play here, because the Texas Rangers have never been to the World Series and the San Francisco Giants haven't been here since 2002, almost a lifetime ago in baseball years. If my guess is true I won't be too happy because while they're the Texas Rangers, it's basically a Dallas team, and we all know Dallas sucks. Plus, the Rangers are the team that used to be owned by George W. Bush, and who wants him to celebrate anything? Unfortunately, Texas will win. Unlike the Phillies, the Rangers have hit well all year and continued to do so in the playoffs. The Giants can't match the Rangers' hitting prowess, and while they have a strong pitching staff, they don't have Cliff Lee. Rangers in 5.