Holy Cow

"I thought it was foul". Nearly every Little League coach has heard those words in response to "Why didn't you run?" But I would think that by the time you get to the major leagues you would have "Run everything out" imbedded into your brain permanently. Especially a player such as Nick Punto, who makes up for some shortcomings by playing great defense and heads up baseball. But Wednesday night on a sacrifice bunt attempt, Nick hit into an ill fated double play when he chose to argue an umpires call rather than run to first. Sigh. Nick made up for it later in the game with 5 RBIs. I think he knew he screwed up and was determined to make up for it. All's well that ends well, and I think Nick will be running everything out from now on. Along came Thursday afternoon, and with runners on first and second and a 3-1 count, Paul Konerko took a half swing at a pitch out of the strike zone, and calmly dropped his bat and began to remove his shin guard as the base runners jogged to advance one base. Wait a minute - Did he swing? Yup, said the first base ump, the count is 3-2. So Matt Guerrier futily ran to tag the runners who had "stolen" their respective bases. The umpires really did not call the play very well, Ozzie Guillen had a good laugh, and Gardenhire got tossed from the game. Matt got out of the inning with no damage, and congratulations to Jim Thome for stealing his second base of this decade. But C'mon guys. You are paid well for your tremendous talent, but talent from the neck down is only as good as what you can add from the neck up.