Lifetime Bans Issued for Urena, Hernandez

DUNDEE:  After the briefest possible investigation and no deliberation whatsoever, the EFL Commissioner announced this morning lifetime bans for Jose Ureña and Keith Hernandez.

“That bush leaguer Jose Ureña will never grace a free agent list while I am Commissioner,” the Commissioner proclaimed. “And neither will that stupid blowhard Keith Hernandez. They’re both thugs.”

The Commissioner’s words were filled with grace and compassion for Ureña compared to what Ureña did: hit Ronald Acuña on the elbow with the first pitch of the game. 

According to ESPN,

The pitch that hit Ronald Acuña was 97.5 MPH.

Out of the 2,125 pitches that José Ureña has thrown this season, that’s in the 99th percentile of the fastest pitches he’s thrown.

That was also the fastest pitch José Ureña has ever thrown to open a game.

According to Stats By STATS,

Jose Ureña of the @Marlins is the first starter in the live-ball era to hit a batter on the only pitch he threw.

The only other starters to hit the only batter they faced were Bob Shaw (1965), Scott Elarton (2001) and John Lackey (2009).

And now we come to those quirky twin Keiths,  Olbermann and Hernandez:

Olbermann: “Let’s have a little leadership, MLB. Suspend Urena for the season and Mattingly for a week. Let the union sue. This is the revenge of the mediocre against the gifted.”

To which the Commissioner responded:

“You never want to be the one to make Olbermann sound like the reasonable Keith.

“In today’s game they don’t allow Pete Rose to risk a catcher’s career with a mugging (sorry, Anthony Rizzo). In today’s game they don’t allow players to juice on steroids. Or ingest cocaine (sorry, Keith Hernandez). In today’s game they don’t allow leagues to ban players based on their race. In today’s game they don’t allow pitchers to kill batters with dirty spitballs.  Or fielders to put runners out by soaking them.  Every one of those practices was banned over the objections of people like you, Keith Hernandez. If you want to play yesterday’s game you’ll need to get your own league.”

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