Manny Gonna Manny
Manny Machado, now sliding into guys 20 feet from base, officially confirmed as dirty player
For years now, MLB fans and players have waffled on whether or not Manny Machado deserves the title of “dirty player.” Red Sox, Brewers, and Dodgers fans would all say that he absolutely is, but for the rest of us, well, it was hard to imagine a $300-million-dollar flair guy as “dirty.” Chase Utley? Sure. Some guy named Cobb from backwoods Georgia? All that and more. But the jury remained out on Machado . . . or at least it was until Sunday, when he did this.
No amount of frosting is going to make that sh*t cake seem edible. Maybe—and we want to stress maybe—you could say that Machado was trying to get out of the way of the throw to first, but the closer angle reveals otherwise. From here you can literally watch Machado size up Edman, see him off balance, and go for his legs. Then he pops up immediately, hands out, apologizing in advance for the Twitter meltdown he’s about to spark. Innocent guys don’t do that. Trust us, we watch soccer.
All of this comes, of course, after Machado left a leg in on Jesus Aguilar during a routine play at first during the 2019 NLCS. That cleared the benches and prompted pretty much the entire Brewers organization to label Machado the D word after the game.
Then there was the Dustin Pedroia incident in 2017, where Machado came in so high and late at second that he spiked the Red Sox legend in the back of the knee. Pedroia would have to leave the game with an injury that eventually ended his career. In December, Pedroia, age 37, had a partial knee replacement on that same knee, and doctors told him he can never run again.
So there you have it, folks. Case closed. Gavel rung. Guilty as charged. Maybe you can get away with this one, two, three, four (five, six, seven . . .) times. This is sports. Accidents happen. Tempers flare. But enough is enough. Machado isn’t even making an attempt to hide it out now, sliding into guys 20 FEET FROM THE NEAREST BASE. Suspend this dude. Fine him back to Baltimore. He doesn’t get a pass just because he plays in sunny, smiling Slam Diego. Lest the MLB want their own Tom Wilson debacle on their hands, it’s now or never.