Me and Joba

Since I started writing this blog, readers have accused me of being racist, talking to much about Asian things, and not enough about West Coast sports. However, BG already covers the Dodgers and Giants. BSlim covers everything NBA and so that leaves me with the A's (what exactly is there to cover) and the Angels (real nice franchise with good hard working players but you don't want to read about them). Football is still too far away so the 49ers and Raiders are off limits but who really cares about them anyways. So I'm really just left to talk about what I know; sports that took place in my backyard years ago, fantasy players I hate (BTW Ryan Howard has found his way back into my good graces with 7 jacks in the past 2 weeks), Steve Nash and Japan. I know this here blog site is dedicated to West Coast sports, but if you keep going farther west of California you run into Japan. There are really more "west" than us. Our fearless leader of the site asked me to tone it down a notch, which got me to thinking about JOBA CHAMBERLAIN, who was also recently asked to tone it down. A week or so ago JOBA fist pumped and kind of twirled off the mound after he struck out David Delluci in the 8th inning. Cleveland players were upset by his showmanship and said so publicly. JOBA more or less got ripped by everyone for showing his emotion on the field, even former Yankee great Goose Gossage. He said:

"That's just not the Yankee way, what Joba did. Let everyone else do that stuff, but not a Yankee," Gossage told The Record on Saturday. "What I don't understand is, the kid's got the greatest mentor in the world in Mariano [Rivera]. He's one of the leaders of the team, so you'd think it wouldn't happen on that team.

"But there's no one to pass the torch anymore, no one to teach the young kids how to act. The Mets did a lot of that [celebrating] last year, and look how it came back to haunt them.

I guess I kind of understand what Gossage is talking about but just yesterday I saw K-rod do everything but sacrifice an animal on the mound in celebration of his three-out save. He literally pounded his chest, pointed to the sky, did some kind of séance and then left the mound. I didn't hear a word about this. Then on that same night, I saw Jon Papelbon first pump to the Gods after a key strikeout in the 9th. Dennis Eckersley (here is my West Coast coverage folks) was famous for this, so why is everyone coming down on Joba? I really don't have the answer but all I know is that if Joba stops, I will stop writing about my white boy Asian fetish. So, whaduya say Joba?

Joba and I quote, "Everybody has their own opinion," Chamberlain said. "It is what it is. I am not going to change."

Well, I guess neither am I.