Left Out

As our anonymous commenter has mentioned, Alfonso Soriano has refused to take the field this evening.

It even got to the point - and this is farcical at this point - that Soriano was in the lineup playing left field and did not show up in the top of the first. The Nats had Eight Men Out in the field.

Now, do not get me wrong. Alfonso Soriano is a jerk. A big selfish jerk who should never get another job in the major leagues. In fact, I doubt he gets signed as a free agent by anyone next year.

But this is an embarrassment. A total, unequivocal embarrassment to what has become, under the reign of Jim Bowden, the laughingstock of professional sports.

UPDATE - 8:34 PM

The Associated Press now has a story up about Soriano's refusal to take the field. It adds a little more light onto the situation, including this choice quote from Jim Bowden:

"We told him if we get to Thursday, and he refuses to play left field, we
told him at that point we will request that the commissioner's office place
him on the disqualified list, at that time -- no pay, no service time,"
Bowden said.

"If he refuses to play and goes home, and the commissioner's office
accepts our request to place him on the disqualified list, then at that point,
if he were to sit out this year, he would not be a free agent, he would stay our
property because his service time would stay the same."

In other words, Soriano will be in limbo - no pay, no free agency, no nothing - unless he picks up his glove and heads to left. If he does go to left field, Soriano could conceivably engage in a type of Operation Shutdown - playing poorly, not trying hard enough. That would kill his value in the free agent market - especially if he did so in a way that was obvious - and he would be cutting off his nose to spite his face. He'd get his $10 million, but would not get the big contract at the end of the season.

One wonders what his agent's role is at this point. He cannot be doing Soriano a service if he is advising him to refuse to play. Nothing good can come of this for Soriano. Assuming his agent is not totally incompetent, it looks like Soriano is driving this train. And he's driving it off a cliff. Thank heavens that he is taking Jim Bowden with him.