Over at WEEI Rob Bradford reports that David Ortiz’s appeal of his one-game suspension for his little ump bump a couple of weeks ago was held yesterday. No biggie. But this is odd:
The hearing lasted almost two hours, and surprisingly also included an incident from two seasons ago. The other topic broached by the representatives from Major League Baseball was when Ortiz smashed the dugout phone at Camden Yards in late July, 2013. The DH appealed the the fine of $5,000 at the time, a case that evidently wasn’t broached until Monday.
How does it take two years to hear the appeal of this thing? Pretrial discovery? Change-of-venue motions? The guy is on camera beating the hell out of the phone because he didn’t like a called strike. I’m all for due process and stuff, but how could this not be handled with a phone call in which someone says “David, got anything to say for yourself that isn’t obvious here?”