Just when you thought baseball's dumbest controversy had dribbled off, here comes a report that the Dodgers treated the Chase Field pool like a giant toilet. L.A. is No. 1 indeed.
The Dodgers jumped into the water to commemorate clinching the NL West, and it drew condemnation from everyone to D-Backs players to Arizona media to John McCain. Because not celebrating in an opponent's outfield pool is one of baseball's oldest unwritten rules, dating back to Hughie Jennings's day.
But one reporter who initially defended the Dodgers' actions is reconsidering his stance in light of newly leaked information. Tony Jackson at Dodger Scribe:
The reason I am doing an about-face here is that it has come to my attention that one of the Dodgers players who jumped in the pool — and I will do him the favor of leaving his name out of this for now — openly and loudly bragged after leaving the pool about having urinated in it.
To me, that takes this to a whole different place. It takes it from a giddy, spontaneous celebration to an ugly, disgusting display of utter classlessness.
There also are indications that MULTIPLE Dodgers players urinated into the pool, but I can’t tell you that with any certainty. It’s just what I’ve heard. What I can tell you is that it was only a handful of guys — maybe eight, give or take — who ran out and jumped into the pool. It would be presumptuous to assume that every one of them had the same thoughts running through his brain. Maybe there were some who really were just celebrating, nothing more. Maybe there were others who meant it as a direct slap in the face to the Diamondbacks.
Maybe Los Angeles just went R. Kelly all over Arizona's collective faces. Maybe.
As anyone who has ever been in a warm body of water will tell you, urination isn't necessarily a territorial display; sometimes it just sort of happens. Regardless, we hope this story is true, and it festers all winter, and leads to the first-ever pee-fueled beanbrawl, and perhaps a decades-long curse that the Diamondbacks can only break by adding more chlorine to their pool.