Article:Sexson Ejection may be a good thing for team

When a team struggles on the field, anyone who follows sports starts coming up with ways to fix the mediocrity. They come up with amazingly crazy ideas about what the team could do to change the problem; usually including a trade that could not happen, a signing that would never happen or a firing that is nowhere near happening.

The other day I broke down what I thought was the problem with the Mariners, and why I felt they were in the hole they were in. (Addendum to that article: Bavasi trades Greg Norton who has no won two games with his bat for the Braves.) Now I want to discuss the way that I feel is the ONLY way to fix the team.

Passion.

Webster’s dictionary says passion is: intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction; an outbreak of anger.

When you lose your passion you stop caring, right? When you stop caring you stop winning. Yet, if you stop winning you might stop caring, causing you to lose passion; a vicious cycle.

I may not play professional sports, but I have played enough that I know that it gets frustrating to lose, and can spawn even worse play. I think I have said this before but deal with it: losing gives you that feeling in your stomach that you would get when your sibling would hold you down and punch you with your own hand. While he is saying “stop hitting yourself” you lose your cool, the knot in your stomach snapping, and you lash out. Sometimes this is a good thing in a sport because it makes everyone else know that you care, and may help them step it up.

This is why I am fine with – almost happy about – what happened in the Mariners/Rangers game last night. You may be down on “Big” Richie, but he is still leading the team with Home Runs and 5 of his 7 HRs have come when the team was losing; this says he deserves more credit then saying he isn’t clutch…

But this video is why I am gaining more respect for him.

source=http://www.youtube.com/v/dZGuJzYozmY width=250 height=250

Sexson said: "I'm 6-foot-8. He can hit corners at will. 6-8 and all of a sudden he's up that high? I'm a huge target. How hard is it to hit me? Hit me in the back or thigh. Up near my face is no good. I've been in the game a long time. I've been hit on purpose before. But it's been the right way. You go to first. It's part of the game. You know how it works…It's a rage. If that ball hits me in the face, what are we talking about here? Who knows what that could have led to?"

Rangers Manager Ron Washington was, of course, upset: "I thought that was bullsh-. How tall is he, 6-13? Then you go out there on a little guy and throw a helmet?"

First off…that isn’t an actual height, Ron. Second: Sexson knew what he did was wrong: “I know throwing the helmet was the wrong thing. It was a chicken (expletive) move. I lost it right there, I was thinking about a lot of things.”

I am going to get barraged with comments that I am saying to throw your helmet. But, no, I am saying that it was nice to see some passion from this struggling club that has the worst offense in the league. I think that the media is making too big of a thing out of this (this is NOT the first time this has happened) and fans from other teams should not be calling Sexson names. Pick a team and I will tell you something bad that they did.

The point of this is that hopefully this will spark some sort of fire under the benches in the Mariner’s clubhouse.