…Then the appropriate course of action is, we believe, to join ‘em. In spite of our best efforts to make this a BASEBALL oriented blog, the most popular piece on this little site of mine (I’m going to let it shine) is the one about soccer super-stud, Cristiano Ronaldo. Now, we originally wrote about the Portuguese ball-kicker in passing, never expecting to return to him. But we’ve come to realize that the fleet-of-foot-footballer-cum-sex-icon draws a lot of attention, and we’re not averse to capitalizing on it.
When last we spoke of young Cris, we pointed out that, like another handsome, purple-lipped master of his sport (uhh that’s A-Rod in case you hadn’t realized), he seems bound to fail in the most critical of moments. Today we present three more traits he shares with with his baseball counterpart: a distinct and unadulterated love of money, a notable lack of tact, and a mighty poor sense of timing.
In recent days, the Manchester United star has been making noise about a move to Spanish juggernaut Real Madrid, describing the move as “a dream, a step forward.” Hardly gracious words for his current club, a team that supported him through hard times, particularly after the 2006 World Cup when he earned the wrath of British football fans by taunting and inciting his United teammate — and British national team member — Wayne Rooney, into committing a foul for which he was shown a red card. Tactless, indeed, to describe the team that developed and coddled you as second-class. As for timing, he allowed this saga to continue during the Euro 2008 Championships, causing a distraction for his teammates on the Portuguese national team. As for his love of money: Ronaldo, a 23 year old, seems to be as interested in the 300,000 Euros per week he is likely to earn in Madrid as he is in the “prestige” of the team. We can’t help but think of Alex Rodriguez, merely a year older, chasing the money and heading out to Texas. Undoubtedly, Real Madrid is a much higher caliber club than the Rangers, but Ronaldo would be leaving a place where he has been comfortable and successful — he scored a league-leading 42 goals last season (the next most was 24) — and heading to unknown territory. Perhaps he will thrive, or perhaps, like Rodriguez and Texas, three years into the marriage both he and Real will be doing everything they can to send the young star onto his next destination. Who knows, maybe with luck he’ll end up in the MLS.
Well technically Adam Dunn and Mr. Jones — Todd Jones that is. Jones joins Dunn in kindergarten today, 
penning a pout piece for the Detroit Free Press, in which he fires more heat at San Francisco Chronicle reporter, Henry Schulman, than he’s sending toward the plate nowadays. Apparently Schulman committed the arch sin of describing Tigers’ bench player, Ryan Raburn, as “a .219 hitting scrub,” and Jones felt the need to respond in print. Says Jones:
”The proper term for what Ryan does is: “A role player or backup.” He’s actually very useful. He plays outfield and infield in the big leagues. (I wonder if Schulman could do that?)
“Sure we’ve got thick skin, and reporters don’t bother us for the most part. But when it’s a personal attack on a guy’s ability or perceived place in this game, enough is enough.
“I’d rather be a scrub than be a guy who sits on the sideline and watches what happens and then writes about it. How about next time, Mr. Schulman, you just report on the game and you show Mr. Raburn and the hundreds of players on all clubs that fill out the big leagues some respect and call him a backup or a utility player.”
Thick skin? Since when have professional athletes had a thick skin about anything. Let us recall the aforementioned Adam Dunn, or Milton Bradley, who recently attempted to charge the press box, to “introduce” himself to an announcer who had been critical of him before being headed off at the pass by manager Ron Washington and GM Jon Daniels. Schulman used a word that is commonly bandied about in sports journalism to give color to his piece. Was it insensitive? Perhaps. Should Ryan Raburn care in the least? No. He’s a professional athlete getting paid more than most Americans and playing a game he presumably enjoys, so if he doesn’t already, maybe he should learn to let comments like that roll off his back. It’s admirable that Jones stepped up to defend his teammate, but it’s also a bit patronizing: the big famous closer taking it on himself to defend the poor little utility player.
Oh, and as for Jones’ question of “could Schulman play outfield and infield in the majors?” Well could you, Mr. Jones, perform brain surgery, or fly a commercial jet, or even write a well-organized and intelligent newspaper piece? The answer to all three questions is no. So let’s all just stick to what we do best. In Mr. Jones’ case, it’s being a middling to good closer, in Mr. Schulman’s case it’s being a middling to good writer, and in our case it’s sticking our nose where it doesn’t belong and giving pointed opinions that should probably be ignored.
The baseball universe seems to be conspiring against our desire to post often and vigorously throughout the weekend, providing little of interest and little worthy of comment. With the important and interesting side of baseball lacking in compelling stories, we’re forced to turn to the petty and ridiculous side. With that, we present Adam Dunn, 4-year old. 
As many of you may know, Toronto Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi stuck his foot in his mouth on his radio program last Wednesday, saying of Dunn:
“Let me ask you something. What do you know about Adam Dunn? He’s a lifetime .230, .240 hitter that strikes out a ton and hits home runs.
“Do you know that the guy really doesn’t like baseball all that much? Do you know the guy doesn’t have a passion to play the game that much?”
Ricciardi, rightly, found himself on the receiving end of a fair bit of flack for this particularly unscientific piece of baseball “wisdom.” Dunn, after all, does possess a 130 career OPS+ (and a 130 OPS+ so far this season) so whether he has a child’s love of the game or not, he’s far more productive than, say: Vernon Wells, Lyle Overbay, Alex Rios, Matt Stairs, Scott Rolen, and yes, you guessed it, every single one of the Blue Jays’ players. But to his credit, Ricciardi issued a heartfelt and profuse apology, saying,
It’s my fault. I take full responsibility for it. I tried to get Adam’s phone number from the Reds … and if he wants to talk to me, I’ll talk to him and apologize personally. But I apologize to him and the Reds. I need to be better than that. I let my guard down.”
Certainly one of the best apologies you’ll see anywhere in sports. He admitted he overstepped the line, admitted he had no one to blame but himself, apologized publicly, apologized privately, and will likely try to apologize face-to-face. What did the wronged Dunn have to say in response to this gracious apology?
Sorry doesn’t fix it.”
Sorry doesn’t fix it? What? Did J.P. give you a boo-boo Adam? Did he steal your bike? It’s sad really; in a rare instance of a sports figure acting like an adult, J.P. Ricciardi accepted full responsibility for a stupid remark. And in response we saw a much much much more common occurrence: a sports figure acting like a spoiled child.
Curt Schilling announced he would undergo season ending surgery today. 
He also intimated that this surgery would bring an end to his lengthy and impressive career. While a number of debates surround Schill’s career (to name a few: is he a Hall of Fame candidate? Was he ever really the true ace of a staff? What has grown more in recent years, his gut or his ego?) there is no questioning he has been a major figure in MLB at least since signing with the R*d S*x. We can’t, in all honesty, say we’ll miss him, but in the 1-Roger Clemens scale of odiousness (Scale Key: 1 = David Wright, 2 = Derek Jeter, 4 = A-Rod, 7 = Milton Bradley, 9 = anyone who plays for the Cincinnati Bengals, and 10 of course = Roger Clemens) Schill only scored a 6 (meaning we only want to lightly smack him with a rolled up newspaper) so we’ll do the gracious thing and wish him the best in his future endeavors.
As our loyal reader(s) may have noticed, DTS has been down for the last 2 weeks or so. In reality, this was due to a lengthy bout of strep, but since that lacks sex appeal, we’ll say instead that we were called in to consult on the Willie Randolph firing. That’s right, we’re breaking it right here, Dropped Third Strike advised Omar Minaya and the Wilpons to fly Willie Randolph out to the west coast and then drop the axe on him in the dead of night. Did we give the Mets bad advice? Perhaps, but we stand by our actions. More importantly, now that we’ve finished with this tawdry affair we can return to the far more important task of giving you, the ordinary folks, our uninformed and frequently horribly wrong opinions, instead of wasting them on hoity-toity fancy-pants owners. In that spirit, we plan to forego our usual weekend siesta and will be posting throughout the next few days. In other words, you can look forward to even crankier than usual postings. And thanks to all of those who expressed concern over our absence. As for those of you who didn’t express any concern, well that’s just rude and I know you were raised better than that. Honestly.
