We finally have the full field for the 2024 Home Run Derby taking place in Texas this Monday and let's just say that this is an underwhelming group. It started out on fire with Gunnar Henderson announcing he was joining the derby live on Sunday Night Baseball and then the others started to trickle in. Bobby Witt Jr joined the club, Pete Alonso is literally addicted to trying to win as many derbies as he can, Alec Bohm is a doubles machine and will take his best shot, Jose Ramirez may be the most underrated player in baseball and will be doing his 2nd derby, Adolis Garcia is your hometown guy and Teoscar Hernandez has been a really good player for a long time.
Then we get to Marcell Ozuna from the Braves. Every baseball fans twitter punching bag, the man who was arrested for a DUI less than 15 months after he was arrested on domestic-violence charges which included aggravated assault by strangulation and battery. The charges for that were dropped because he did a few different service programs in a plea deal. Cops had reported seeing Ozuna assault his wife, not great. We've all see the DUI video, "I'm Ozuna....from the Braves". Check under any tweet about him, that phrase is there underneath it. Bottom line is he shouldn't be showcased by MLB in a Home Run Derby, no one should be rooting for this guy.
The fact that baseball is willingly putting him on a pedestal and invited him to participate in the derby is a crock of sh*t. It's a fun event usually highlighted by the best of the best in baseball, and if you look at his numbers he falls under that category, he's a good player. .298 average, 24 homers, 75 RBIs, good stuff there. Again, this is supposed to be a fun event highlighting elite talent in baseball and highlighting their stories while watching them hit the piss out of baseballs.
Josh Hamilton is a piece of sh*t person now, he should be in jail for a long time for what he has done since leaving baseball, but his comeback story BEFORE BEING A GIANT PIECE OF sh*t was incredible and he was amazing that night in 2008. Trey Mancini making his comeback from cancer in 2021 before losing in the finals, that was a great story and one that MLB was right to highlight.
Nothing about Marcell Ozuna should be highlighted by the league or put on a pedestal because of the piece of sh*t that he is. And again, I know the charges were dropped through a plea deal, but you can use your brain here. He isn't worthy of being put in the spotlight in front of the whole country. Braves fans will say I'm soft or a puss* or whatever, doesn't matter to me. I'd have the same opinion of Miles Bridges in the NBA if he was in the dunk contest or something where he was selected by the league to represent them. Bad people shouldn't have good things happen to them, plain and simple.
I guess this also shows that no one in baseball really wanted to do the derby? Maybe they scrapped the bottom of the barrel and asked him when everyone else said no? Which again, kind of falls on baseball for not getting more buzz around the derby going. This is a great event that a ton of people watch every year where some fantastic and inspiring stories are talking about. I don't know what they'll mention about Marcell. They'll talk about Bobby Witt Jr going to the ballpark with his dad, Gunnar being All-State in basketball while being an incredible baseball player in high school, they'll talk about Garcia being traded to Texas and then they'll get to Ozuna and have to gloss over him being arrested twice within 16 months and how do you really glorify that and talk about it?
MLB didn't have to include him in this, they didn't. They chose to. Get ready for the memes, get ready for the tweets to fly every time the announcers say "MAN HE REALLY HIT THAT ONE", just get ready. "And there's Ozuna from the Braves again!", it won't be pretty but this is what MLB wanted. The other guys will have the conversations about the adversity they have overcome, Ozuna's main talking point will be how he took a plea deal and how he tried to dap his way out of a DUI.
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And I know all teams have dirtbags on them, every sports league has criminals. This one just seems like a huge misstep by baseball. Have him in the All-Star Game, sure, who cares. You don't have to single him out or highlight him, have him go through the motions there and move on. But maybe just don't invite him to participate in maybe the thing that most casual fans look forward to every year? You got the 2 best young shortstops in baseball, a stud from the Guardians, a stud from the Phillies…..and then you have a guy who is most known for his 2 arrests off the field. Kinda takes away from the other good stories of the event if you ask me. Don't think anyone outside of Atlanta is going to be rooting for this guy to win the $1 Million prize, safe to say people will have their rooting interests elsewhere. Color me shocked that MLB couldn't read the room. Just could't imagine supporting a guy like this.
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