It can be extremely tough to enter a world of fame and fortune in which your every move will be looked at under a microscope.
Some guys handle the constant attention in a professional manner (e.g., the Peyton Mannings of the world).
Those are the guys you watch on TV because, maybe, you’re a fan of the team or the player. Others just implode and give us all something to laugh about at family dinners.
And those are the games you flip on the TV to watch just because there is a certain individual who may provide some late-night entertainment that is even more comical than The George Lopez Show – which just so happens to be a fairly simple accomplishment.
One of those individuals rose to the occasion this month in the world of sports. So I’m repaying him with a special Wide Word of Sports honor: Dip of the Month.
And, for me, one of those individuals is Nyjer Morgan, oufielder for the Washington Nationals.
He has been one of the few Nationals players (besides Stephen Strasburg) who has made any headlines this season.
If he was not throwing an extremely pathetic, yet hysterical, temper tantrum in center field, he was rifling baseballs into the stands at opposing fans in Philadelphia.
My personal favorite came last week when he attempted to run over Cardinals’ catcher Bryan Anderson—who was about six feet in front of home plate—and, in the process, completely missed home plate.
But he was back at it again on Wednesday night when the Nationals visited the Florida Marlins.
After being hit with a pitch on two consecutive plate appearances, Morgan charged toward Marlins’ pitcher Chris Volstad and grazed his face with what looked like a flying judo chop before being laid out by a vicious clothesline delivered by first baseman Gaby Sanchez.
I know what you’re thinking: Who the heck is Gaby Sanchez? I had no idea who the guy was until I saw him on Monday Night RAW in Wednesday night’s brawl. But he saw the six-foot string bean (Nyjer Morgan) charging toward his pitcher and nearly took his head off, taking a page out of the Undertaker’s playbook.
But that’s not all.
Morgan, his shirt roguishly unbuttoned, was then escorted off the field after the brawl withhis hands in the air like Rocky Balboa after he defeated the soviet juggernaut Ivan Drago in Rocky IV.
The only difference is that Morgan was the one who got his bell rung.
Congratulations go out to Morgan for providing the sporting world with a little bit of entertainment over the last month. And I thank him for providing the Word with a Dip of the Month.
His reward: a 15 game suspension issued by Commisoner Bud Selig.
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