Opinion: Jake Arrieta should be investigated for child endangerment
WARNING: Please be advised that the following extremely hot takes are SATIRICAL in nature. By reading, you hereby acknowledge and agree that you are doing so at your own risk. All grammatical errors are (most likely) intentional.
Woo hoo big round of applause for the Cubs for being able to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in a one-game series. Hope you guys are proud of yourselves but just know that you haven’t done anything worth celebrating. As a lifelong Cub fan, aka a guy who watched highlights of Kerry Wood striking out 20 jabronis on Sportscenter, I was equal parts mad and embarrassed about the performance of their ace Jake Arrieta during the post game revelry. It is troubling to me on a number of levels, but the most disturbing part of his late-night antics was the danger he put his child in.
Try to follow along.
In the first place, the one-game play-in game is essentially Garbage Time. Fighting for the right to be a sacrificial lamb to the baseball Gods shouldn’t be something you celebrate it should be something you tolerate. I mean how much smaller of a stage can you get? Are we gonna have play-in games where its just one pitch and if you can knock Apple’s Beats By Dre off Andrew McCluthless’s head then every Cubs fan gets to pretend like they’re part of a playoff series?
Its called the “boys of summer” but its supposed to be the “men of fall.” And right now the Cubs are sending the message that there expecting to hibernate.
Back in the day Babe Ruth loved and respected the game so much that he would celebrate the fact that he was going to get to play a game tomorrow, go out drinking untill 4 am, and hit two home runs when he was more dehydrated then the foul line. Nowdays the only sodium tablet players should take is a grain of salt that should come standard with every first-round win.
And this attitude of celebration starts at the top folks.The Cubs twitter presence is especially disturbing. Everywhere you look they had there little hashtag out—bragging about one. stupid. win. Just check this out:
#FlyTheW was everywhere last night. And You know what I remember another time someone literally “flew the W” and celebrated prematurely folks.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
The Chicago Cubs are a bat-flippin, bench clearin, cocky young team that was engineered by a guy with a calculater and a spreadsheet by a guy who belongs in a locker, not a locker room. This is the type guy that tells players its ok to celebrate a walk—which is literally a baseball player not doing there job. So is it any suprise we were treated to this disgusting display in the postgame locker room?
Charles LeClaire / USA Today
After the game was over, right when you think you’ve seen it all, there was winning pitcher Jake Arrieta and his little son. And he handed him a bottle of alcohol to celebrate. Can’t make this stuff up.
Now I’m not one to snitch. besides the times I reported Richard Sherman to the Seattle Police department for slapping Mike Crabtrees butt, or reported Lebron James for a sex crime when he showed his junk on TV by accident, or reported Russell Wilson to the FCC, or reported Marshawn Lynch to the FCC for not talking to reporters, and a few other examples, I keep to myself when it comes to athletes. But I had to submit a complaint to Pennsylvania Crimestoppers when I saw his baby boy weilding a champagne bottle like it was a tickle me elmo.
PFT Commenter
PFT Commenter
I understand that traditionally if you only give your child liquor after the Cubs win a playoff game they’ll typically have grown old enough to legally purcahse it themselves, but we’re in a different age now. If you want to get your child drunk after you win a meaningful series thats one thing but I cant pretend I didnt see this. Someone tweeted at me yetserday with a good point that its called CHAMP-agne, not PLAY-IN GAME-WINNER-agne. But no, there was Arrieta strutting and dancing when he should of been more concerned with his WHIP, not his Nae-Nae.
Makes you wonder if maybe that beanball that hit his belt and made his side swell up literally made him think he was more hip than he really was.
Fortunately baseball has a way of policing themselves for this sort of thing. MLB is basically a league where everyone’s a good guy with a gun at any given time, and the threat of swift justice raining down on you from 500 deputized citizens keeps people on the straight and narrow typicaly. True, ever now and again you see people goof up like Arrieta or do something incredibly disrespectful like acidentally see where the catcher is setting up when you’re suppose to be spitting tobacco and adjusting your scrotum before you swing. But you can bet your bottom dollar that a good samaritan will be throwing at his head next time he steps in the batters box in a attempt to win the game, and further corrupt his child.
*****
Now it goes both ways. Its not just fans calling for drilling showoff pitchers. Perhaps the greatest unwritten rule is the one that says player are aloud to bean fans with foul balls if they’re not paying enough attention. But baseballs failure to evolve and make new adaptations for safety concerns is frankly, appalling.
Imagine this. Your on a date with your Aunts roomates daughter, just trying to have a good time. All of the sudden there’s a line drive screaming at your head and you dont see it coming because there’s a weakling in front of you with a baseball mitt the size of Dallas, Texas trying to catch it.
Major League Baseball has a little bit of a problem on there hands. Someones going to get killed in the stands unless they allow fans to bring bats in to games to protect themselves. Every single day they dont allow it is another day that someone is likely to be catastrophically hurt, or even worse, injured.
Attending a MLB game is basically like serving in Iraq in terms of how dangerous its become with all these kids trying to hot dog it with there mitts these days. Bringing a glove to the stadium is dangerous for the following reasons:
1. It makes them think they can catch a ball as good as a adult which makes them compete for the same balls with larger more assertive fans like myself which puts them at risk for a injury
2. If a bully sees them weilding a glove they could get beat up for looking like a nerd
3. Next thing you know kids will be have a iphone app for tracking foul balls or something.
In conclusion, I certainly hope Arrieta gets whats coming to him because the only bottle he should be popping is the Advil bottle. Play hard, dont bring me home a clean uniform, and try to keep your kid sober until you get a ring. Your supposed to be an Ace in the Hole, but your acting more like an Ace-hole.
