Come on B1G...
I always enjoy listening to the Sportsmanship creed read by PA announcers prior to B1G athletic events.
It's a fairly solemn reminder of the hypocracy about to ensue. Laughable that you can't hear the IU P.A. announcer professing the B1G and NCAA Sportsmanship guidelines beacuse he's being drowned out by the Screaming Chant of "F--- Kentucky during a basketball game. But down right dispicable that participants in a B1G baseball contest can't remain injury free from the blatant unsportsmanlike and dangerous acts of others.
Case in point - the IU v Purdue Baseball Championship game in Columbus, OH. PU player, Eric Charles, takes it upon himself to making a flying leap dive roll into the knees and legs of an IU defender (SS Michael Basil) who is waiting with ball in glove to tag Charles out at 3B after an overthrow. Charles is tagged out and Basil takes exception with his apparent attempt to injure him by getting in his face verbally.
This is followed by PU players leaving the bench in unison and IU players joining what looks to be a mere shoving and yelling match.
Except of course for the aforementioned Eric Charles who started the whole thing with his dive roll into the kness of Basil. No, shoving and yelling weren't quite enough for Charles. So...while the coaches and umpires are gaining control and calming the situation - he punches an IU Player (it appeared to be Justin Cureton) in the jaw. This of course was the only punch thrown and/or landed. Mr. Charles was just trying to make his presence known again. It's obvious he wanted some more "face time" since he did these heinous acts on national television.
Charles was ejected from the game along with an IU player (DeMuth). While the umpire was explaining the rulings of ejecting Charles to PU's Coach Schrieber - you could see Schrieber mouth the word "Why?"...really, Coach? Really?
Uh...Coach should have known why...since it was the same Eric Charles that had a tantrum on a call at the plate during PU's last home game and was ejected for arguing with ump. Maybe there's something to the leadership aspect of this too, Coach.
Bottom line - quit giving us the Sportsmanship high moral ground on paper and with PA announcements Big Ten...Put some teeth in your rules and suspend Charles for the Regional Tournament.
And if not...at least we will still have the mandatory, obligatory and contrived post game handshake that the networks can always show.
This post was edited on 5/28 9:45 PM by Stuntman Mike's Car
Fortunately, Basil was not injured.
Eric is playing again tonight. The biggest screw up was moving the games to freaking Gary. Maybe 500 people there, sad, but not surprising.
I watched it several times. Yes, the slide was bad. But some of the IUs players reactions were just as bad. How about Johnson who comes flying into the picture knocking his own teammate over. There were no winners from this, but as the other poster stated- one game fits.
didn't hear anything about it.
Originally posted by iloveiu:
I watched it several times. Yes, the slide was bad. But some of the IUs players reactions were just as bad. How about Johnson who comes flying into the picture knocking his own teammate over. There were no winners from this, but as the other poster stated- one game fits.
Agreed. No winners in this.
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