Posted on 04/19/2009 7:29:45 PM PDT by Justaham
Just when you thought your 1-10 Washington Nationals couldn't grow any more absurd comes some news that goes beyond the ridiculous and into the territory of the just plain laughable.
On Saturday, Washington outfielder Elijah Dukes was benched, fined $500 and threatened with a demotion to the minor leagues after he showed up to the park a mere five minutes after the team's usual reporting time.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
Those are Acta’s rules. They’re the same for everyone.
Rules are rules, orders are orders.
Harken back to Vietnam, if a ROC was told to report at a certain hour and did not, he was shot.
Period.
"OK, so rules are rules, but sometimes there are exceptions that should be made and Dukes' excuse would seem to qualify him for one — he was doing charity work for the Nats at a local Little League.
Here's Manny Acta's explanation for the punishment, via the WaPo's Nationals Journal:
"He was late for work, he broke a team rule, and we are going to change the culture here — regardless of how well a guy is playing," Acta said. "And it was a bizarre situation, because he was doing something that we encourage our players to do: He was out in the community doing something for some Little League program and just showed up late to work. He was very remorseful about it. He felt bad, but we have to lay the law on whoever."
The letter of the law killeth ... and the legal/political climate in America is begging for a return of the guillotine.
An old coach of mine had a saying, “Ten minutes early is too late.” He also gave iron-clad deadlines in odd increments. If he said practice began at 6:23 a.m., and you arrived at 6:24, it was back to the locker room for the morning, and alternating pushups and wind sprints for twenty minutes after the afternoon practice. If it was announced that the bus was leaving at 4:37 p.m., you could set your watch by it, and if you weren’t on it, you got to listen to the game on the radio that night and do your pushups and wind sprints the next day. This seldom happened.
See also “Lombardi time”.
Methinks Manny won’t be around long enough for somebody to do those things.
ROC?
I once fired a good engineer for being less than 2 minutes late getting to a flight gate - and the hatch was closed.
He missed our flight... His portion of the planned presentation had to be done by an unprepared colleague.
Normally - this wouldn't be a borderline firing offense..
But this particular clown had a habit of cutting things too close and keeping others waiting for him to start a meeting or leave in a car together.... He displayed the attitude that HIS time was more important than mine or his colleagues.
Missing the flight by less than two minutes was the final straw — I frankly I wouldn't have given a damn no matter WHY he was late THAT time.... His history had destroyed any claim for consideration.....
Duke's case may be the same...
Without all the facts it's a tough call to make.
Manny Acta benched his best hitter (.323) because he was 5 minutes late at a Little League charity event.
Obviously this baseball manager has poor judgment, and should be replaced.
It reminds me of the probably apocryphal story about the temperance group that complained to Lincoln about Grant’s drinking. In the story, Lincoln’s response was to tell an aide “Find out what Grant is drinking, and send a barrel to all my other generals”.
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