In an event that is usually considered an accident, but many agree was premeditated and intentional, Manny Ramirez aimed a line drive at Roy Oswalt’s neck this afternoon and afterward the Rays didn’t even lose the game on purpose out of courtesy.
It happened quickly, but led immediately to horrific gasps from the crowd and the color commentator for MLB TV to remark, “Oh shhhhhhhhhhh…”
Moments later, Roy Oswalt, as usual, left the field laughing and smiling while others looked on in fear.
What you need to remember is he hales from this place:
So RoyO pitched his way out of a tiny town in Mississippi, where no scouts dare travel because they figured he was only striking out 16 or 17 Class A baseball players a game, and where his summer job was tractor-fighting, maybe. Does that mean he would fight a sentient tractor one-on-one, or that he would be driving a tractor while fighting another person, also in a tractor? Who knows. I have made up the majority of the things in this paragraph.
I mean, it didn’t even hit him in the skull. And after years of fighting lions within the dry landscape of rural Mississippi, it will take a hell of a lot more than a screaming line drive to the back of the neck to derail his pitching career.
Roy and Brian Schneider piled into Roy’s car and headed off the get him some x-rays, all of which came back negative. When I picture the two of them in the car, I see the second scene of Reservoir Dogs, with Schneider being all “YOU’RE NOT GONNA DI-IE, SAY THE GOD-DAMN WO-ORDS!” and Roy replying, “Please calm down.”
He was diagnosed with a bruised neck, while Manny Ramirez was diagnosed with being a jerk and this blog was diagnosed with being dumb and catty.