Yanks rebut: ‘A-Rod’ not juicebox guy
What began as “A-Rod Juice Box” promo night for a Tampa Bay Rays minor league team quickly became Apology Night.
The Charlotte Stone Crabs of the Florida State League on Friday night abruptly canceled the promotion that barbed slugger Alex Rodriguez after a complaint by the New York Yankees.
The Class A team had planned the giveaway for the first 500 fans at its game in Port Charlotte against Tampa, a Yankees’ affiliate. The writing on the boxes said “100% percent juiced” with side effects that included “tainted records, inflated ego, omission from the Hall of Fame, and more!”
Rodriguez, fourth on the career home run list, missed the 2014 season while serving a drug suspension and returned to the Yankees this year.
“On behalf of our entire organization I apologize to the New York Yankees, our affiliate club the Tampa Bay Rays, and all fans who may have taken offense,” Stone Crabs General Manager Jared Forma said in a statement.
“Turns out that apology night was the most appropriate promotional theme for the game,” said New York spokesman Jason Zillo.
No shows on, off field
Miami Marlins players are disappointing their fans on and off the field.
The Marlins organization had said players would attend an event Thursday night to benefit the inner-cities baseball program. When no players showed, fans complained on social media, and team president David Samson wasn’t happy either.
“I’m disappointed no players were there,” Samson said Friday before an 8-5 loss to Baltimore, the team’s eighth in a row. “Win or lose, what we do in the community matters most. When you have a commitment with the community, you’ve got to do it. The job doesn’t end at the 27th out.”
The event was Thursday evening at Marlins Park and began 3 ½ hours after the team lost to Arizona, completing a four-game series sweep. Player attendance was optional, but some players who committed to go did not show, Samson said.
The group absence raised the suspicion players were protesting the recent firing of manager Mike Redmond, who was replaced by Dan Jennings. Reliever Steve Cishek said the losing streak simply left the team in no mood to socialize.
“For this to look like we’re upset with the managerial change, that’s not the case at all,” Cishek said. “We have DJ’s back. It was just bad timing. Everyone is just fed up with how we’ve been playing.”
Samson also said the players weren’t protesting Redmond’s firing.
“I think it’s solely that we’ve lost seven in a row and we’re playing terribly,” Samson said. “I get it, because I’m grumpy also.”
Top to bottom
Geologists say a giant sinkhole near the driving range of a southwest Missouri golf course is fairly common because of the region’s karst topography.
The sinkhole consists of two adjacent sinkholes that appeared Friday morning near a pond at the entrance of the Top of the Rock Golf course near the resort town of Branson.
The course is part of the Bass Pro Shops-owned Big Cedar Lodge complex and hosted a PGA Champions Tour event last month.
Bass Pro Shops conservation director Martin MacDonald said geological engineers are studying the sinkhole to see if it might have been caused by an undiscovered cave.
He said the hole, 80 feet wide and 35 feet deep, was created by the merging of two smaller sinkholes.