There's No Crying in Baseball!

So are we supposed to dog it in spring training or prepare ourselves for the long haul? I say long haul.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi turned out to be quiet aggravated after Saturday's spring training game against the Tampa Bay Rays. There was a crucial collision at the plate in this game, where Tampa's Elliot Johnson plowed over Francisco Cervelli of the Yankees. Cervelli will now be out 10 weeks with a broken wrist. Girardi wasn't a fan of the "hard" play.

"It's just disheartening. It's spring training, I just don't understand," Girardi said. "I told all my players to play hard, but when you do something like that you take your chances that you will get someone hurt."

Don Zimmer, who is a now a senior adviser for the Rays, has been close with Girardi during the Yankee bench coach days, but he strongly disagreed with what the new Yankee manager had to say.

"You block the plate. If I slide into him and break a leg, nothing is said. Instead of breaking my leg I bowl him over and it's not the right play?" Zimmer said. "Well, to me it's the right play, spring training or no spring training. Play the game the right way. To me, our kid played it the way he thought it was right, and I think it was right."

And this may be the one time I say this, but I agree with Don Zimmer. Sure, maybe you can say 'oh, Matt, you just hate the Yankees'. And yes, I do. But really, I feel like the game should be played the way it is meant to be. I love listening to Keith Hernandez during Mets games always making the point of how no one plays as "aggressive" as they did in his day. Poking fun at players coming into home plate insisting they're practically saying "excuse me, old chum". Truthfully, players need to start going in for a little more kill. And I like that there was a collision at the plate in March. Sure, it's terrible that the kid broke his wrist and will be out for about eight weeks, but it's part of the game.

Zimmer hit it right on the head that if Johnson were to just slide feet-first into the plate being blocked and if he broke his leg nobody would have made a fuss out of it. But because he went out his way to get to the plate, the best approach to scoring. Spring training is to tune you up for the regular season, might as well tune up the attitude if you want to win at all during the year.

So Girardi, please, pipe down. You used to be the tough, scrappy player. This is the way the game should be. Sometimes you just gotta get yourself dirty.

And Tom Hanks was absolutely right, there is no crying in baseball.