Carl Crawford May Be Fined for Honoring Jackie Robinson With Cleats
That is not a typo. According to Yahoo! Sports, which quotes a report from ESPN’s Mark Saxson, the powers that be at MLB contacted Crawford’s agent about the cleats he wore in Monday’s loss to the Padres.
As you can see in the picture, Crawford (who, like many players on the team, received one pair each of blue and white cleats emblazoned with “42”) chose to wear one shoe of each color on Jackie Robinson Day. At the time it didn’t seem like a big deal. Actually, it seemed really freakin’ cool to everyone not wearing suits at MLB headquarters.
According to Saxson’s report, Crawford said he was trying to have a little fun with it after seeing Jimmy Rollins change cleats mid-game earlier in the day. Then he added: “But I guess the league doesn’t want us to have any fun.”
For those of you who watch the NFL regularly, this stinks of a Roger Goodell influence. As a master conspiracy theorist, I will presume that Goodell got bored in the offseason, noticed Crawford’s cleats on TV, called Bud Selig, and threatened to put a bounty on him if he didn’t do something immediate, drastic, and douche-y about it.
The more likely scenario, though, is that MLB struggled with a decision of whether to uphold their wardrobe policies, or ignore it as an exception for a special day. The fact that they gave Crawford a warning instead of immediately doling out the fine makes me think that a fine is less likely to come.
We’ll see if Crawford is taking out his checkbook in the next few days, so stay tuned. But for now, we’ll add this latest nonsense to the long list of mishaps the Dodgers have accumulated as a clear target of MLB, the Diamondbacks, and Carlos Quentin’s. My team just can’t catch a break. If we could, we’d be 14-0!
Shoot, there’s that conspiracy theorist in me again. Carry on.
– Jeremy Dorn (@Jamblinman)
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