Jonathan Papelbon Found Not Guilty Of Thoughtcrime

Pap’s not mad at you, AAA-callup umpire D.J. Reyburn. He’s just disappointed. Disappointed that you’re so bad at your job. You “probably need to go back to triple A.”

Stern words. After a game in which Phillies starter Vance Worley gave Reyburn a long stare after walking two in the first, and the Dodgers Don Mattingly and Trey Hillman were ejected for arguing balls and strikes in the sixth, Papelbon came in to a tie game in the ninth. He thought he had Dee Gordon struck out, but Reyburn called it a ball and Gordon tripled on the next pitch. He would score the go-ahead run, and after the inning, Papelbon approached Reyburn. He was headed off by crew chief Derryl Cousins, and told him he just wanted to ask Reyburn a question.

“I wanted to know if he could throw me out for what I was thinking.”

He was not ejected, but that’s a fascinating conundrum from one of our nation’s leading philosophers, touching on our protections in the Bill of Rights, our safety-for-security tradeoffs of the last decade, and our constant hurtling toward an Orwellian future where the robot umpires will be able to monitor players’ brain waves.

Or maybe Papelbon was just really cranky about getting squeezed.

“I thought he was terrible. All day. It wasn’t just that pitch. All day ... I thought he sucked. It’s that simple.”

Los Angeles Dodgers, umpire D.J. Reyburn get to Phillies closer Jonathan Papelbon [Philly.com]