BL: ..Yuli and Yu… and RIP Bench Jockeys.
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UPDATE: at 1:40 AM Monday morning Game Five just redefined HUMDINGER. Not sure anything can out-Humding this one. Astros 13- LAD 12… OH MY!!!
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There will be people reading this column who have never heard the words “Fusion GPS” or “UraniumOne”. Who truly believe The Smartest Woman on Earth never knew nuthin’ about nuthin’ about her ill-fated presidential campaign.
Even “those people”, in their media bubble, have heard that…
… some Cuban baseball player said or did something AWFUL at/to some Japanese/Iranian baseball player. And Earth actually stopped revolving around the Sun AND stopped rotating around its polar axis. It was THAT big a deal. Forget both The Cuban Missile Crisis and Pearl Harbor. This dwarfs both of those by a lot.
I, personally, don’t think it was THAT big a deal. Alas, my application to be Czar of Really Big Deals keeps getting rejected. … sigh.
Here is a thumbnail of what actually happened. This will differ significantly from the umpteen versions you read on Twitter or Facebook or any “mainstream media” sites.
Friday night in Game Three of The World Series… a Houston Astros player named Yuli Gurriel ( U-Lee Jewry-El) hit a Home Run off of a Dodger pitcher named Yu Darvish (U Dar-Vish). Both players’ first names beginning with “Y” is kinda neat but irrelevant.
Yuli circled the bases and went into the Astros dugout. Where his teammates congratulated him including messing up his rather unusual haircut. Think of a rooster’s top knot. Lots of baseball players have unusual haircuts these days. Yuli’s haircut is especially unique. Again an irrelevant factoid.
A Cuban player on the Dodgers has blue hair..??? Don’t ask me…
There are a bazillion cameras covering a WS game including a number apparently assigned to each team’s dugout. As the game continued, Yuli, in the after-glow of his feat, and, while sitting on the bench in his team’s dugout made a finger gesture that… in Cuban culture… is a derisive “slur” to Asians, Orientals, Japanese, and Koreans. It chides “Asians” for the almond-shape of their eyes.
To Cubans, all Asians are Chinese(??). They do not further separate them by specific national origins. Who knew?
NOTE: If an MLB player needs to scratch his butt or adjust his “cup” he better go to the locker room and lock the door, or risk being arrested for indecent exposure… in America 2017.
The Dodger pitcher off of whom he hit that HR is Yu Darvish who is Japanese (and part Iranian too) and makes mucho millions and as a free agent will make mucho mucho millions more after The WS is over. Yu speaks “OK English” enough to “order a Big Mac and fries”. He has almond-shaped eyes. No clue if Yu’s Iranian part is Muslim or not.
Have I mentioned that the 33 y/o Yuli spent his first 30 years in Castro’s Cuba? He did. Then he played baseball in Japan for a year before signing with the Astros two years ago. He makes $12,000,000/year as a solid, but not great, first baseman for the Astros. That equates to more $$$ for each one of 162 games ($75,000) than he made TOTAL in his 30 years living in Castro’s Cuba. Yuli speaks “very broken English at best” relying upon an interpreter for media interviews.
I feel compelled to insert here that Yuli Gurriel, as a Cuban citizen, not only did not vote for Donald Trump and he also does NOT listen to eeeevil right-wing talk radio. That I have to insert that tells you where THIS is going… in America 2017.
In addition to the “finger gesture about Asian eyes”, Yuli “mouthed” a Cuban slur about Asians. He “mouthed” it. He did NOT yell it out. He “mouthed” it. Meanwhile Yu Darvish was 100+’ away pitching to the next Astros batter. Yuli was sitting in the Astros dugout.
I don’t know diddly about Cuban culture. Joe Ovios would be my go-to-guy if I had a need to know. I certainly did not know that Cubans had special finger gestures and slurs specifically about Asians. The Cuban slur Yuli “mouthed” was “chinito” i.e. “Chinese boy”.
I have no clue what that means or how it slurs Chinese… but apparently it does. As “all this” became an international incident of STOP THE PRESSES magnitude both Yuli and Yu apparently were familiar with the term that Yuli “mouthed” in the dugout.
The Astros won the game with Yuli being a star of the game.
NOTE: With GIANORMOUS events like a Super Bowl or World Series the “media” covering the event swells to include a LOT of “millennial mutts” who don’t know an “infield fly” from a horse fly. Many of the same clueless nimrods that cover politics and weather and other areas of “news” they know “squat” about. That is the mob who descended upon Yuli and his interpreter after the game.
Yuli managed to convey he was sorry. He knows and respects Yu and did not realize he had created an International incident… sitting in the dugout basking in the after-glow of hitting a HR in an WS game.
OF COURSE… this then became “an international incident” with Dodger fans… and other PC-obsessed sickos across America DEMANDING that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred (1) “Braveheart” Yuli and sent his disemboweled carcass back to Castro’s Cuba. And, of course, (2) forfeit the series to The Dodgers and maybe (3) withhold all federal aid to Houston for whatever their hurricane was named.
NOTE: I have not seen any quotes from my favorite Dodger fan “the lovely” Mary Hart. I hope Mary is not too upset.
Idiotic Houston Congresswoman (D) Sheila Jackson-Lee probably said something really stoopid because she always does. She surely blamed Trump… while wearing a funny hat. If anyone merits a “slur” it’s that mo-ron.
Commissioner Manfred has suspended Yuli for Five games beginning next season… without pay. That will cost Yuli about $350,000 which will be donated to some Chinese charity in Houston.
Now Dodger fans and those PC-obsessed sickos are really really pissed at Commissioner Manfred because they wanted Yuli’s head (with the funny haircut) on a platter… for making that finger gesture and “mouthing” a slur while sitting in the Astros dugout after his Home Run.
Commissioner Manfred now joins NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell as America’s Two Most Hated Pro Sports Commissioners. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver remains America’s Strangest Looking Pro Sports Commissioner… by a lot.
If I was MLB Commissioner, I woulda (1) fined Yuli $50; and (2) demanded he find a different barber. That haircut really is goofy.
Through all this I thought about Bench Jockeys…
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RIP to “The Bench Jockey” in Baseball….
This 5-ALARM OMG over the Yuli / Yu Non-Issue personifies what America 2017 has evolved to… 
“Back in the day” EVERY baseball team at every level from LL to MLB had a designated “bench jockey”… usually a utility player who, if he got ejected, didn’t hurt the team too much. …..
The Bench Jockey’s “job” was to verbally “rag” the opposing team – and the umpires – the entire game FROM THE DUGOUT. By “getting inside their heads” he broke their concentration giving his team an edge. ….
NOTHING was sacred… ethnicity, physical features, wives, girlfriends, etc etc… the more notorious bench jockeys became celebrities.
Imagine Don Rickles in a baseball uniform yacking like a foghorn from the dugout for 9 innings.
It was not uncommon for an insult to be sooo funny that the home plate ump / catcher / batter had to call time because they were laughing so hard….
We have two regular commenters here – Cowdog and, of course, THE Bob Kennel. Both have played A LOT of Baseball. With Cowdog, I am 100% sure he is very familiar with bench jockeying and fancied himself quite proficient in that art. BK did it too both from the dugout and while crouching behind the plate. Knowing BK, he probably invented “bench jockeying” when he helped Abner Doubleday lay off the first diamond.
I won’t be surprised if we get a visit from “Coach CNR” on this one. I sure hope so.
Somewhere in Baseball Heaven 100s of “bench jockeys” are shaking their heads and laughing their butts off at this latest Yuli vs Yu OMG !!!
… I certainly am.
PS: Blondie has a TERRIFIC column about How Celebrities Get Tickets to Big Games. You should read it … LINK
PS2: I know you’ans want my take on NCSU v ND and I have one. But this Yuli / Yu Mess had Global Significance. I’ll explain why Wuffs should calm down and not do what you’ve probably already done … in my next column, I promise.
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