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League Championship
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Wednesday, October 25
Czar Robinson says Clemens' conduct inappropriate
By Jayson Stark
ESPN.com
NEW YORK -- It wasn't a suspension. It wasn't five years of hard labor. But the reported $50,000 high hard one that baseball discipline czar Frank Robinson fired at Roger Clemens on Tuesday at least sent Clemens a message -- however small.
And we can sum up that message in five words: YOU COULDA HURT SOMEBODY, PAL.
|  | | Clemens hurls the broken bat toward the first-base line and Mike Piazza. |
"I want people to know," Robinson said Tuesday, "that if they're not going to act appropriately, they will be dealt with."
And Robinson left no doubt that while he didn't feel Clemens deserved to be suspended for heaving a broken bat in Mike Piazza's direction in Sunday's Game 2, he at least found it highly inappropriate.
"It's the way he disposed of the object," Robinson said. "It was a broken bat, with a point. And it was the velocity with which he threw it -- and the direction in which he threw it, in the direction of the baseline, which Piazza had a right to be running up. He could have caused a serious injury."
Robinson said that after interviewing the umpires, the two managers and the two general managers Monday, he interviewed Clemens in person Tuesday morning.
"Roger said he was really gung-ho out there," Robinson said. "He was pumped up for the game. And when the bat went flying towards him, for an instant he thought it was the ball coming. When the bat hit him in the shin and he picked it up, then he knew it was a bat. But he said all he was doing was trying to get it off the field."
Clemens also attempted to convince Robinson that "he'd done it before." But when asked if he'd ever seen anyone do that before, Robinson shook his head and said, simply, "No."
"I've seen people pick up the bat and give it to the batboy," Robinson said. "But not at that velocity."
Robinson said Clemens expressed no remorse for what happened -- "and I didn't expect him to." But Robinson also said, curiously, that he wasn't concerned with determining Clemens' intent at the time of the incident.
"Intent wasn't what I was after," Robinson said. "Roger deserved to be heard. If there was going to be a significant fine, I think he deserved to be listened to."
Asked if he saw any grounds for suspending Clemens -- either during the World Series or at the beginning of next season -- Robinson succinctly replied, "None whatsoever."
Clemens issued a statement following the fine that said he didn't want to consider whether or not to appeal until after the World Series. But Robinson said he expects an appeal "because there's always an appeal. And that's their right."
Mets GM Steve Phillips said he "didn't really expect more than (a fine). So I'm satisfied with it. I certainly wasn't calling for his suspension from the Series, and I don't think any of our players or Bobby (Valentine) or the staff are looking for him to be suspended. So if they deemed it appropriate, after addressing it and evaluating it, to fine him, then so be it. We're ready to move on."
Phillips said he felt the decision not to suspend Clemens was actually appropriate. "Our preference is that, if we have a chance to win the World Series, we'd like to do it with both teams at full strength."
But this made three straight days in which this incident was a tidal wave that seemed to overwhelm everything and everybody in this World Series. And there were those who felt Robinson shouldn't have ruled until after the Series. But he disagreed.
"I feel like it has more importance as for what may or may not happen during the rest of the Series," he said.
But he also predicted that when this Series was over, that flying bat would not be the most vivid memory of it.
"I just think it was an isolated incident," he said. "I don't think 50 years from now, people will be saying, 'In the Subway Series, this was happening in Game 2.' I don't think it was a big enough deal to focus on -- because it's still the World Series."
Good point. And it's great to hear that after all this Batgate talk, there's someone left in baseball who was able to recall that there is a World Series going on. It's been tough to tell these last 48 hours.
Jayson Stark is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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