Nationals bench Dukes after Little League-related tardy note

[UNHWildCats]

***Note: If the content of this thread is useless to even one member of the forum I apologize... Some people prefer I only post things that they find interesting.***


Just when you thought your 1-10 Washington Nationals couldn't grow any more absurd comes some news that goes beyond the ridiculous and into the territory of the just plain laughable.

On Saturday, Washington outfielder Elijah Dukes was benched, fined $500 and threatened with a demotion to the minor leagues after he showed up to the park a mere five minutes after the team's usual reporting time.

OK, so rules are rules, but sometimes there are exceptions that should be made and Dukes' excuse would seem to qualify him for one — he was doing charity work for the Nats at a local Little League.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_le ... mlb,157410



Now It's the Community Giving Back to Dukes

He stayed for the speeches. He stayed for the parade of Little Leaguers -- all 54 teams' worth. He stayed for the cheerleaders and the introduction of the high school team and the national anthem -- perhaps getting a little fidgety, but staying nonetheless. Finally, Elijah Dukes took the microphone, said a few words to the kids and parents about "working hard" and "having fun." Exactly the type of stuff a big-time professional athlete would say on opening day of the local Little League.

And then . . . "Boom," said Jim Mraz, president of the Great Falls Little League, "he sprints to his car and he was gone."

It wasn't until later that day that Mraz and the other organizers and parents from the league realized what had happened to their keynote speaker after he left: Dukes had arrived five minutes late to Nationals Park, earning himself a $500 fine from his employers, the Washington Nationals, for whom he plays center field.

"The next day we're reading the paper, and we're hearing he was [fined and] benched," said Leslie McClain, mother of 11-year-old Luke. "We were just really horrified by that, so our first thought was we want to raise the money in the community to pay that fine. We just think it's appalling."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03203.html

[Willie]

I saw this yesterday. The Nationals should be ashamed about this. You're going to bench and fine a guy for being 5 minutes late when he was helping kids? Wow.

[TwinTownBisonFan]

welcome to the WORST organization in MLB... i can't think of one that is even close in terms of terrible...

[bench]

I can't let a thread about Elijah Dukes pass without posting links to two terrific Dukes-flavored Dugout chats. Enjoy.

F______ the Children in Their A____

The Sound and the Furries

[JMU DJ]

welcome to the WORST organization in MLB... i can't think of one that is even close in terms of terrible...

You forgot about the Montreal Expos... wait a second...

[TwinTownBisonFan]

welcome to the WORST organization in MLB... i can't think of one that is even close in terms of terrible...

You forgot about the Montreal Expos... wait a second...

It's sad, because before that rat bastard Jeff Loria owned them... they were a pretty good franchise. then MLB bought out the team and began the process of sandbagging them so that they would be contracted... when that fell apart (due to not being able to contract the Twins) they decided to send them to DC...

Their new ownership group is just as bad as Loria sadly, it appears (or they are still recovering from the MLB ownership era)

[BlueHen86]

Maybe the Nationals gan use the money on Wheel of Fortune to by an "O".

What an idiotic organization. Can we send them back to Canada?

[tampajag]

After all the trouble Dukes has been through (most of it self inflicted) this takes the cake.

[dgreco]

Manny Acta has his job on the line. He needs to act tough and say its not me a being a bad manager its these sucky players.

[BlueHen86]

Manny Acta has his job on the line. He needs to act tough and say its not me a being a bad manager its these sucky players.

Understood, but this doesn't help. The Natinals should be embarassed that Little League parents are paying the fine - there is no way the Natinals should accept money from little league parents. If they do they should offer free tickets to the Little League families involved in this incident.

[TwinTownBisonFan]

Manny Acta has his job on the line. He needs to act tough and say its not me a being a bad manager its these sucky players.

Understood, but this doesn't help. The Natinals should be embarassed that Little League parents are paying the fine - there is no way the Natinals should accept money from little league parents. If they do they should offer free tickets to the Little League families involved in this incident.

it's not like anyone is paying to see them anyway

[BlueHen86]

Understood, but this doesn't help. The Natinals should be embarassed that Little League parents are paying the fine - there is no way the Natinals should accept money from little league parents. If they do they should offer free tickets to the Little League families involved in this incident.

it's not like anyone is paying to see them anyway

If Dukes had been benched the little league parents would be paying for him not to play.

[JMU DJ]

it's not like anyone is paying to see them anyway

I have a bunch of friends who sat in center field and were Lastings Milledge "Fan Section" going so far they shelled out the inordinate amount of money to get MLB official Milledge jerseys ... they're all bummed now that he got booted to the minors, guess that's what happens when you take a joke to far.

[TwinTownBisonFan]

around here we had the LaTroy Hawkins Fan Club about 5 years ago.

when i was in HS and had 81 buck full season tickets a buddy and i had the "Chad Allen Society" for one year. (he was later named in the mitchell report) funny thing was, he and Matt LeCroy and Doug Mientkiewicz were just about the coolest, most down to earth guys... they would come down and talk to us before the games, we got to know him pretty well... it was a fun goof and he had a decent year by late 90's Twins standards...

then he broke his leg in 2000... was never really the same