Brett Gardner: Now An Ass

Who is Brett Gardner? It doesn’t matter. All you need to know right now is that the picture below is of him and that he’s my least favorite baseball player in the world. We’ll get to that later though.

In case you aren’t a frequent reader of WaB, the title of this post is a play on Bryan’s most recent post. Unlike that post however, the title of this one is a little deceiving. This is actually Part 3 in my “Weller’s becoming a baseball fan” series. The first one being about how I picked my team, and the second being about my first fantasy baseball draft. This one is about my Orioles laying the smack down on the Yankees in their first game of the season,  and what I learned from watching the game. I’ll start by explaining the title.

One of the first things I learned while watching the game was that I don’t like Brett Gardner. He’s the Yankees center fielder and I don’t like him. At all. Early in the game (I believe it was the bottom of the first) Nick Markakis, the Orioles right fielder, hit a fly ball to center field, which was caught by Brett Gardner. That was bad enough, but then the camera zoomed in on him after he caught it and he just struck me a some cocky, hot-shot kid who was way to full of himself. I know nothing about him, but I’m judging this book by it’s cover. He looked like a conceded prick to me so I’m sticking to it. I believe at this point I sent a text message to Bryan saying what I thought of Brett Gardner, though that text message may have contained a more offensive choice of words.

In the bottom of the second inning Luke Scott, our left fielder, also had his hit get caught by Brett Gardner. Seeing him again only increased my confidence in my initial opinion of this guy. I went with my gut feeling, and I trust my gut, this just reassured me. Then in the top of the third Brett Gardner got a single and ended up scoring. I didn’t want him to get a hit or score because I’m cheering for the Orioles, so I decided these were a few more good reason to not like him.

Brian Roberts

In the top of the fifth inning Gregg Zaun, our catcher, threw out Brett Gardner at first when he tried to bunt. I laughed at him because he sucks. Then in the bottom of the fifth Brian Roberts hit a ground rule double to deep center because Gardner didn’t catch it so I laughed at him some more. Gardner got his revenge though. Later that inning, Gregg Zaun flied out to center and Gardner threw out our third baseman, Melvin Mora, at home plate. This is when I realized that I didn’t just dislike Gardner. He was quickly becoming my least favorite player.

In the top of the sixth Gardner flied out to left field where we started Luke Scott instead of Felix Pie, but we’ll talk about that later. What’s important right now is that I got to laugh at Brett Gardner some more. That’s all Gardner really did for the rest of the game. He got thrown out by the catcher, Gregg Zaun, again in the eighth inning and allowed Zaun to get a double in the bottom of the eighth.

At one point during the game I sent two text messages to Bryan, the first saying “I think Brett Gardner is quickly becoming my least favorite player.” That was followed up by the second one which said “I really don’t like that guy… Is he even worth disliking? Like do people know his name?” Bryan simple responded “Nope. Haha.” To that I said “Well he sucks.” I think I also called Gardner an alternate word for a female dog but that’s beside the point. The real point is that he’s a Yankee, I got a bad vibe from him, didn’t like the way he looked and he caught some fly balls, threw a guy out at home, got a hit and scored a run. What else could I possibly look for in a guy to hate? He was productive for a rival team against us and looked like a punk. I guess he could have gone to florida, but then I would have already hated him and this wouldn’t be a new development.

So congratulations, Brett Gardner, you’re only 25 years old and are only in your second year of being in Major League Baseball and you already have somebody blogging about how much they hate you. That’s what you get for playing for being a skanky Yankee.

I’m also currently crushing my opponent in my fantasy baseball league.

Here are the top ten non-Brett Gardner related things I learned from the game today:

• Brian Roberts is an absolute stud. I already knew he was my favorite player (which I’ll write a post about at some point) but this game he had five plate appearances, getting three hits including a double, scored two runs, got walked once and had an .800 OBP, and a 1.000 slugging percentage, giving him an OPS of 1.800 which is studly.
• CC Sabathia was a huge disappointment. I’d heard his name a lot before so I knew he was supposed to be good, but he didn’t strike a single person out. I guess that’s what happens when you mess with my Orioles!
• Brian Roberts ran home on the grounder to third so that if the ball went anywhere else the guy on second would have been able to score. Bryan had to explain this to me.
• If the ball hits the fielders glove and he doesn’t catch it, that doesn’t mean it’s an error. That’s dumb. Catch the ball.
• Apparently over the shoulder basket catches aren’t easy. Bryan had to tell me this when I got mad at one of the players for not making a catch… I still think Reggie Wayne would’ve caught that ball. Wrong sport? Sue me.
• There is no good reason for the lack of a salary cap in baseball.
• Our shortstop makes me nervous and I really have no reason for it.
• I want Felix Pie to start instead of Luke Scott and I want Matt Wieters to start instead of Gregg Zaun. Again, I have no reason for this other than the fact that Pie and Wieters are much younger than Scott and Zaun.
• My Orioles are better than Bryan thinks they are.
• I hate Mark Teixeira. You grew up in the Baltimore area and had the opportunity to come home and play for them and you went to their division rival instead? You suck. Karma was on our side. On opening day you went 0 for 4 against your hometown team. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. I hate you, but not quite as much as I hate Brett Gardner.

I guess I lied at the beginning of this post when I said that the title was deceiving because this post was almost entirely about my new discovered hatred for Brett Gardner.

We beat the Yankees!