Scott Cousins is fire, Brian Sabean is gasoline

I want this story to go away. I really do.

It's awful enough that our best position player is likely out for the year. It's pretty rotten that a USF grad and Bay Area guy trying to make it in the bigs injured him. Even worse, it's becoming a media circus and pecker measuring contest.

Am I mad that Scott Cousins took out Buster? Hell yeah I'm mad. He could have easily slid to the right, avoided the tag, and still scored the winning run. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.

It sucks. It all just sucks.

And it's going to get uglier before it gets better.

We have Brian Sabean basically vowing revenge against Cousins and the Marlins, rooting for the young Marlin to never play again. We have Buster refusing to take or return apology calls from his home plate assailant. We have the league office getting involved.

Now, we have one of my favorite young players, Logan Morrison, Cousins's teammate, firing back on satellite radio that Sabean, "...(is) ignorant... inappropriate, and he has no idea what the hell he’s talking about.”

As I said. It's getting ugly.

If you read my last story about Buster's injury, you'll know that I don't blame Cousins for his violent collision with our golden boy Posey. It's baseball, and I will stand by that. It sucks, it's sad, and we're all angry, but it's still baseball.

We would all be celebrating if Buster or Burrell had run over John Buck or Chris Iannetta to win the game, as Cousins's agent pointed out.

And it's true.

We all have a right to be pissed about it, and we are, but there really is no blame to be handed out. Should Hanley Ramirez or Mike Stanton be drilled in the ribs the next time we play them? Absolutely. Not only that, but we should drill them in their next at bat too.

Guess what. That's baseball too.

The biggest problem we all have in this is that there is no one to blame here. Cousins is the easy target. Some jerks up on their high horse-- the same pansies who don't like fighting in hockey or the tackling of quarterbacks-- want "more to be done" to protect catchers at home plate. Baloney. I don't want to hear it.

I also don't want to hear other people perched atop their tower of morality preaching down to Sabean about "losing his cool" and "not flying off the handle." Buster Posey is like a family member to a lot of people in the Giants organization, and just as if you felt like one of your own got cheapshotted, he called KNBR and vented on the air. He has the right, and if you people living in your glass houses can't take a little natural emotion from our General Manager, then maybe you'd be better off rooting for peewee soccer teams instead of Major League Baseball. I'm sorry, but I support Brian Sabean and everything he's said.

I don't necessarily agree with all of his statements, but I fully, 100% support him defending Posey, rallying the troops, and speaking from the heart. If you ask me, we need more of that in professional sports.

It was a freak thing, I don't condone it, but it's part of the game. The sooner we all accept that fact, and move on to watching our rapidly improving ballclub, the sooner we'll be able to concentrate our energy on praying for Buster's swift recovery and a repeat World Series championship.

Mark DeRosa, we hardly knew ye...

I know this is a little late, and borderline irrelevant, but I wanted to touch a little on Mark DeRosa's potentially career-ending wrist injury.

He's the type of player every team wants-- at least in theory... a versatile guy who can hit, is a hoot in the clubhouse, and is generally just a valuable piece to have on your baseball-themed chess board.

Well... that was 2008 Mark DeRosa... and to a lesser extent, 2009 Mark DeRosa.

The 2008 Mark DeRosa hit 21 dongs with 87 ribeye steaks. The 2009 Mark DeRosa, even with a little time on the DL with that stupid wrist problem hit 23 HR and 78 RBI. From 2006 to 2009, DeRo had a .291 BA. He still played all over the field. He was just a plain old good baseball player.

The Cleveland Indians of all people, saw that DeRosa's star was dimming in 2009 when they dealt him to St. Louis at midseason.

It was this trade that gave Cleveland their future closer in Chris Perez, and began the downfall of DeRo's wrist and career.

The 2 yr./ $12MM deal the Gyros gave DeRo really bothered a lot of fans. Coming off a wrist injury, was a 35 year-old without a truly good position a good idea? Many wrote off the deal as a typical Sabean move.

I liked it at the time because he's the type of player I'd love to have on my fantasy team... and real team for that matter. Unfortunately, the deal ended up being the worst contract since Dave Roberts a few years ago.

Here's a look at DeRosa's career as a Giant:

44 games, 12 runs, 24 hits, 1 HR, 13 RBI, 4 doubles, 11 walks, .224 SLG%, .178 BA, 24 K, 3 errors.

That is just plain depressing. But I bet this breakdown will make you sick.

Here's the money breakdown for Mark DeRosa's contributions:

44 Games = $272,727 per game
24 Hits = $500,000 per hit
1 HR = $12,000,000 per home run
5 XBH = $2.4 MM per extra base hit

Ugh. Gross!

Regardless of how disturbing all this is, it's not fair to Mark to put all this crap on him. There's nothing he could have done to prevent the series of wrist injuries that befell him. He's a hard worker, a dedicated guy, and to accuse him or blame him for his lack of performance isn't fair.

It's rare that I feel bad for multi-millionaires with hot wives, but you know, I do feel for Mark in this case. His career is likely over. If your wrist doesn't work, you can't swing, and if you can't swing, you're gonna be playing basketball in your backyard pool and picking your kids up from elementary school for a living.

Hey. Could be worse.

Baseball is what he loves to do. It's his livelihood, his passion, and he was pretty damn good at it. It's incredibly frustrating to be limited physically when that prevents you from doing things you enjoy. It totally sucks.

And like Barry Zito, another expensive failure, there's no one more disappointed in their Giants career than Mark DeRosa.

With all that said, it's an unfortunate end to a scrappy and solid major league career, and if Mark DeRosa isn't a coach or color analyst for a pro team within the next few years, I'd be shocked.