Afternoon Baseball

EDIT: (04/17/07): I'm an idiot for a bunch of reasons. One, Soriano is way better than Brad Wilkerson. Secondly, the deporting comment made no sense -- he wasn't un-American, just a jerk for a day. Now, I stand by Frank Robinson smacking him around if he was younger.

Not taking the field. In a spring-training game, of all places. What a disgrace. Maybe the Nats ought to give a senator a call about how to quickly deport someone. Soriano is just lucky Frank Robinson isn't 10-15 years younger. He'd probably knock him in the head.

Granted, this doesn't absolve the Nationals from being buffoons and trading for him when they knew he was going to be petulant about switching positions. As funny as this headline is, the Nats can't say they didn't know Soriano was a selfish player or that this scenario wouldn't occur.

Beyond the fact that Soriano is inflated by his home ballpark, and even then a shadow of his Yankee days, and not as good as Brad Wilkerson, he said almost immediately that he was a (crappy) second baseman who wouldn't play the outfield. That was Dec. 9. The Nats have sat on this grenade for 3 1/2 months.

Also, still in December, Jose Vidro decided he wasn't moving from second, either. After playing all those years with the Expos and in Puerto Rico, and dealing with the uncertainty around the Nats, he can basically decide that. So again, the Nats have a problem.

Plus, who knows how old Soriano really is. The Yanks upped his age after he left them, and like a good auction, there's always room to go higher. Thanks to Baseball Musings for the links, by the way.