Bad move, Delmon

If you haven't heard, Delmon Young was ejected after taking a called third strike in the first inning of Class AAA Durham's game Monday at Pawtucket. He followed his ejection by flipping his bat toward the umpire and hitting him in the chest with it.

I searched for video for about an hour tonight, but didn't find any. I read the stories at minorleaguebaseball.com, on the AP wire and from fans at the raysbaseball.com forums. One poster at raysbaseball.com wrote that he/she was at the game.

:: View topic - Delmon Young = oy vey
from "LONE RANGER" -- "What I have a problem with is him tossing the bat at the ump. And he went out of his way to do so. He was heading back towards the dugout, spun around midstride and tossed the bat, continued the spin until he was facing back towards the dugout again, and walked off the field as if nothing had happened."

***
Dear Del,

Dude, this isn't going to help you get to the big leagues. It doesn't matter if the pitch was a foot high and just inside the first-base dugout, all people will remember is that you hit an umpire with a bat.

There are times when you have to chill.

You're super competitive and that makes it tough, but sometimes you have to let that stuff slide. If you get kicked out, don't let it affect you the next day, either because you're still thinking about it or you've been suspended. If you're just hosed on a call, don't let it stop you from that next at-bat.

I'll take a guess and say the suspension will be 10 games, but it could be longer. You'll also be under a microscope from here on. Elijah Dukes plays in the same environment, though Dukes seems to revel in it. Don't make that mistake.

There's going to be a lot of what you'd call "(crap)" written about you the next few days. What happened can't be ignored, nor should it, partly because of your status as an elite prospect and mainly because of the incident itself.

But this isn't the first time you've been involved with an umpire, nor the first time you've thrown a bat.

You bumped an umpire after getting rung up in the ninth inning of an April game last year (April 29, 13-0 loss to Carolina, umpire Jeff Latter, to be precise). You and Latter -- and half the Biscuits and the other two umpires -- had another confrontation in the tunnel after the game. It earned you a three-game suspension.

That was less than a week after you threw your bat after being hit by a pitch against Birmingham (April 23, 10-8 win by the Biscuits). In the seventh inning, the Barons hit you in the back with a pitch. As you were facing the backstop, you threw your bat over your head toward the mound. It landed about two-thirds of the way there.

Why is this stuff still remembered? Because you're an immense talent, the type of player that fans will talk about for years to come. Everything you do is already news because of that. (I admit I did have to look up the details, though.)

Get through those "(crap)" stories, learn from this, don't give us another reason to write those stories and start pounding the ball.

With love,
-Stacy