Kenny Rogers is not the first and will not be the last public man to demonstrate his profound desire that the press not grace his presence by performing acts guaranteed to leave his desire unconsummated.
Clearly enough, the Texas Rangers lack training in the fine art of not attracting attention to themselves. We have Rogers to thank for that Wednesday afternoon revelation, shoving one FOX Sports Net Southwest lensman and then shoving the camera of a KDFW-TV lensman violently enough to send the man to the hospital for treatment.
That was one day after he barked at two other cameramen to back off, warned another reporter never to speak to him again, and reportedly smashed something in the clubhouse that featured glass, on a night that would have been his game start but for lingering lead (glove) hand soreness from a spontaneous bout with a possibly profane water cooler almost a fortnight earlier.
The miracle in the Wednesday revelation may have been Rogers spotting yet ignoring two more cameramen even as he walked toward them, though perhaps Rangers catcher Rod Barajas should be credited with an assist for escorting Rogers away, albeit not before the pitcher threatened to break every f’ing one of them.
According to Rangers general manager John Hart, Rogers told him after the incident was over, "I didn't handle this right. I'm frustrated. My integrity and toughness is being called into question."
The grammatical error was the least of problems for a man who brought his own integrity and toughness into question by a fortnight of acts that climaxed in his withdrawing from a game start against a team that showed itself only too willing to exploit the impaired a week earlier.
Rogers's fortnight of fustian began June 17th, when umpired called his final Washington Nationals batter a check swinger on a full count pitch, provoking him to spike the ball a la the NFL's end zone meatheads when manager Buck Showalter came to lift him. Presumably, the dugout water cooler dared address him with an uncalled for belch when he sought a sip to cool off, provoking him to try beating it into scrap with his non-pitching (right) hand.
Through toughness enough did Rogers answer the bell for his next scheduled start, glove hand still in discomfort from disciplining the mouthy cooler, only to learn the hard way that toughness carries a different connotation for a team of Los Angeles Angels who brutalized him for 6 runs and 10 hits in that three and a third.
"Kenny has had a short fuse dealing with the media," Rangers owner Tom Hicks was quoted as telling the Dallas Morning News after his candid camera clobbering Wednesday afternoon. "I've heard stories about what may or may not have happened. He has issues. It's directed at the media, and I don't know why."
Perhaps by now, will someone have briefed Mr. Hicks that, last offseason, Rogers was reported threatening retirement without a contract extension. If it was merely speculative if not false, it might explain much of Rogers's animosity without a single note's condoning his manner of wringing it out with water coolers or cameras.
"It's not something we'll take lightly," Showalter was quoted as saying of Rogers's style of Wednesday camera shyness. "When I have all the facts, I'll deal with them." And then, speaking like a man for whom facts do not what he wishes, he suggested, "One person was frustrated — frustrated at not being able to win."
Some might be frustrated at not being able to explain how Showalter missed that, from an April outing against Tampa Bay until one bad date with the Angels, Kenny Rogers was a man unable to lose.
It seems hard enough to explain in this hour that Rogers by his own act resembles another kind of loser. The kind who learns the hard way, assuming his bosses deign for once to behave like leaders rather than enablers, that beating up rude inanimate objects and shoving cameramen into a hospital treatment room might be one way to lose a shot at a contract extension that an all-star-caliber season had otherwise justified.
All of which provokes one to sympathy of a sort for Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Oliver Perez. If you are inclined to create the First-Annual Kevin Brown Awards For Extinguished Foolishness — named in dishonor of the forty-something Yankee pitcher who decided the cure for a spell of injury-enhanced ineffectiveness was beating up a clubhouse wall — Perez has earned a nomination to the 20 Mule Team Mulehead Medal, for kicking his way onto the 15-day disabled list by trying to punt the clubhouse laundry cart through the posts, after a harsh outing against the St. Louis Cardinals. In a game the Pirates went on to win, anyway.
Rogers before Wednesday was at least a nominee for the Arrowhead Cooler Clobber Citation. Rogers, in Wednesday's aftermath, should add a nomination to the Panavision Punk Pugilist Prize, Senior Citizen Division, with a poison oak leaf cluster for proving such an upstanding role model to those who follow him in the practice of the pitcher's art.
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