Carl Everett by Adam Ulrey, Summer, 2000

Today Carl Everett decided not to appeal his 10 game suspension for bumping an umpire. Over the next 10 days we'll find out how much his absence hurts the Red Sox. You just can't let your emotions get away from you at this point of the season. What Carl Everett did may cost his team a shot at going to the playoffs. If the Red Sox go say 5-5 and lose two to three games in the standings that could be enough to sway the pendulum.

Before we go any further, let me clarify just what Everett blew a gasket over. Everett is a switch-hitter. When he bats right-handed, he erases the inside line and places his back (right) foot quite close to the plate, with a few inches of that foot completely outside the (now vanished) line defining the box. He does the same when he bats left-handed. The result is that Everett crowds the plate as much as any hitter in the history of the game, and so he's almost impossible to pitch inside. I guarantee you that if he would have tried this 30 years ago, Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale would have put him on his fanny so quick he wouldn't have know what hit him. But today's pitchers just won't pitch inside for fear of getting suspended or starting the proverbial baseball brawl. I remember when Pedro Martinez was pitching a no-hitter against. In the seventh, Pedro had a 1-2 count on Reggie Sanders and hit him with a curve ball that was clocked at 82 miles per hour. Sanders responded with one of the dumbest things I have ever seen: he charged the mound. You have got to be kidding me! Why would someone throw at you in the midst of a no-hitter? This illustrates the over-sensitivity of baseball players today. Thus, pitchers fear pitching inside, whereas in the old days they would throw right at your head to back you off of the plate. They felt they owned it.

Back to Mr. Everett, who has had run-ins like this before. In 1994, he was suspended for lack of hustle while a member of the Florida Marlins' minor league system. In 1997, he was thrown out of a winter league game for going into the stands after fans threw beer on him. Later in 1997 he threw manager Bobby Valentine to the ground while trying to go after an umpire. He did the same to Boston coach Tommy Harper in his latest fiasco. So this isn't the first time that Everett has acted like a two-year old. I have no respect for anyone who would take any disagreement to the point of physically attacking someone. We are talking about the heart of the Red Sox batting order. He was batting .316 with 26 homers and 75 RBIs. He only hit 25 all of last year.

Actually, I think Everett is getting off lightly with the 10 game suspension. I really believe the crime should be 20 games. When Pete Rose was managing the Reds, he received a 30-game suspension for the exact same thing. I realize that Pete wasn't a player at the time, but that set a precedent. was set. I like the way Rob Neyer of ESPN wrote about how to deal with this situation.

"Any hitter that comes to the plate and starts messing with the lines-back, front, inside outside- is immediately ejected. There is no conceivable rationale for allowing hitters to destroy those lines, and frankly I'm sick of watching them do it. After all, Everett didn't go berserk because a rule was enforced. He went berserk because a rule was enforced for the first time this season, after 86 games of non-enforcement." With all this, there is no excuse for losing it like Everett did.