Baffoe: Chris Sale Is Forever Branded A Baby
By Tim Baffoe--
(CBS) On Sunday morning, I was visiting with family and over coffee the conversation turned to Chicago White Sox ace left-hander Chris Sale. My White Sox fan relatives were aghast and dumbfounded by the latest drama, a certain pain in their faces having to try to grasp how this even happens, as though they were sitting in a police station waiting to pick up a teenager arrested for vandalism.
During the how-the-hells and I-can't-believes over Sale cutting up the team's jerseys in frustration prior to his scheduled start Saturday, my two-year-old nephew was refusing his dad's orders to stop messing with the TV remote. He was told to stop, he didn't, told again, same response. This resulted in a timeout, the kid made to sheepishly sit in a chair off to the side. He'll eventually learn that this is how the world works, that we don't always get to do whatever we want and certain authority must be heeded. My nephew's timeout was temporary and the lesson likely more permanent, as he doesn't come from an environment of entitlement.
In other words, he isn't Chris Sale -- and not just because my nephew is built like a miniature fire hydrant.
"We're all extremely disappointed that we have to deal with this issue at this time, both from the standpoint of the club as well as Chris' perspective," White Sox general manager Rick Hahn said Sunday morning in what felt like an episode of a really bad sitcom where the angry player destroys the team's uniforms on purpose. "It's unfortunate that it's become this level of an issue and a distraction, taking away from what we're trying to accomplish on the field."
Translation: "We can't (bleeping) believe what this (bleeping) (bleep) (bleeping) did either. It's all (bleeped)."
"I spoke to him again this morning, to inform him of the discipline," Hahn said about having to suspend Sale for five games because he's a spoiled brat. "We spoke for about 10 minutes and had a very calm and rational discussion about the events. While he may not have agreed with the club's perspective on this, he understood where we were coming from."
This shows that as of the next day, after having his ball taken away from him and being sent home with a night to reflect on his actions and sleep on the whole thing, Sale -- a leading Cy Young contender -- is a childish loser. That Sale "may not have agreed with the club's perspective on this" -- a perspective of basic grown-up decency and understanding you don't get to destroy office property because the sailor suit mommy and daddy are putting you in is uncomfortable -- is Hahn letting us know his pitcher has no understanding of not just being a damn adult but also no understanding of the effects of this inexcusable episode of the depressing show As The Sox Burn.
"Hindsight's 20-20," Hahn said. "Could there have been better communication before he took the actions he did? Perhaps. Would that have changed anything? I don't know.
"Again, he's a very passionate individual, very focused individual. When he believes he's in the right, he goes full bore after it. It's part of what makes him aggressive and great on the mound. So I don't know if any different words being used early in the encounter would have changed his reaction or not."
So had an actual grownup tried to calm down the big tantrum, Sale may still have gone rogue with scissors or knife or whatever tool of ignorance he used. That's lovely to know.
In the same freaking clubhouse, in the same year, Sale found a way to trump the Adam/Drake LaRoche saga of spring training -- hand-down baseball's weirdest story in years and years.
This is Sale's legacy. Go and win five Cy Young awards? You're still the dude who cut up throwback jerseys in a fit of crazed entitlement. Forever.
And make no mistake -- this is about an entitled child who, like too many pro athletes, has seemingly not been told "no" enough in his life and has had authority figures in his life fold in favor of his mood. This is a player who a few months ago was defending a literal child as a clubhouse leader and now sits at home, suspended for one of the most bizarre acts of childish behavior in sports history.
Sale turned an anti-climax of a now-lost season into a public farce. The White Sox are currently relevant because their petulant ace went postal on clothing. That's unfairness that reaches wider than Sale's gangly wingspan. It puts Hahn and (whenever he stops seething wherever he is) executive vice president Kenny Williams in an unfair position of having to explain and quell this like aghast parents in the principal's office.
It has Brooks Boyer and the rest of the marketing department unfairly having to call rightfully angry sponsors and suppliers and explain how the team will make this sabotage right and apologize for a spazz flushing lots of promotional money down the toilet and having 20,000 fans with throwback jerseys wondering why the team isn't wearing them. An unfair extra job gets added to clubhouse personnel having to wrap their heads around an emergency of an entire team suddenly having no uniforms and disposing of the crime scene. Manager Robin Ventura, never one for appearing stern or appropriately patriarchal, has his job unfairly turned into repairing a fractured fragile clubhouse vibe and answering questions from media that he didn't sign up for. Again.
And maybe various members of the organization share a bit of responsibility for what might be a culture that created the opportunity for a whiny man-child to even consider destruction of property. Even if that's true, this post-pubescent person acted of his own free will and of a personality that was cultivated before he was on the White Sox and probably wouldn't change much regardless of workplace protocol. This is on the superstar psycho with the very full diaper and will be for the rest of his baseball life.
Maybe most unfair of all about Sale's conscious choices Saturday is the gut punch to White Sox fans, a maligned group of predominantly decent people and solid baseball fans who through no fault of their own has never quite shaken the reputation and subsequent punchlines of Disco Demolition and the Ligue family. Now that has manifested on a different level, with an actual player embodying the trashy stereotype. And not just any player but the best player on the team. This is the one player who brings any national attention to the perpetual little sibling of Chicago.
That attention is now mocking, giggling. Mouths are agape, there's pointing and WTF-ing and puns and crying-laughing emojis.
This episode may be at some point in time forgivable, but it's permanently inescapable. White Sox fans don't deserve the inevitable late night talk show quips at their favorite team's expense. They don't deserve the smack talk from uncreative, soft-headed Cubs fans this week during the Crosstown Classic series and forever. These fans are tired of ownership and management -- for reasons right and wrong -- but the last bastion of solace was in players at least being adults and gritting their teeth and taking the field regardless of circumstances and trying to win.
Chris Sale -- face of the franchise and All-Star Game starting pitcher -- crapped all over that. He actually could have defecated on the floor of the clubhouse instead and lost less respect. Whether he's traded this week or with the White Sox for the rest of this season and beyond, Sale doesn't get to delete this from his Wikipedia page or from future conversations about him. Nor should he be allowed to ever have this forgotten.
This is an overgrown child with supreme talent, but a child nonetheless. He showed that with the way he publicly and ignorantly bus-tossed the organization following the absurd LaRoche garbage. He makes his attempt to continue the on-field fracas into the Kansas City Royals clubhouse last season less fire and passion in retrospect and more another piece of evidence of a spastic prick.
Maybe this can be mitigated with Sale doing some charitable work (a clothing drive perhaps?). Maybe being self-deprecating about it would help (a promotion at his next home start with cut-off shirseys?). More likely Sale is telling himself right now that he's in the right, because he's always been in the right. He certainly hasn't said anything publicly since Saturday that should lead us to think otherwise.
Sale's suspension isn't a "timeout," because that doesn't work at his age. Chris Sale doesn't understand how the real world works or even its very distant cousin, the fantasy land that is a baseball clubhouse.
He isn't sheepishly considering his choices in a kitchen chair off to the side of the grown-ups. He's a two-year-old, now and in the way he'll be talked about forever.
Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBaffoe. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.