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Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: The Adam Eaton-Todd Frazier Beef Could Not Be Any More Stupid
At least it’s over now
When Nationals outfielder Adam Eaton and Mets infielder Todd Frazier started chirping at each other on the field on Monday night, I was excited by the possibility of a rare interpersonal baseball beef. It turned out to be so much less interesting, but more asinine.
In the locker room Monday night after the on-field incident, Eaton went off on Frazier, calling him “childish” and saying he wasn’t surprised the veteran was trying to stir the pot.
Frazier initially refused to elaborate on the incident but did speak about it Tuesday after seeing Eaton’s comments. Even still, he was annoyingly vague, refusing to say anything about the source of their animosity other than that it stemmed from their time together with the White Sox.
“He understands where I’m coming from. He knows the past history,” Frazier told reporters. “He’s going to have to take it, that’s it. I’ve said my piece and I’m done with it now, unless something stirs up. That’s about it.”
But thanks to a report by Dan Bernstein of 670 The Score in Chicago, we know a little bit about what exactly went wrong and how deeply silly it is.
It all goes back to the equally-stupid controversy over Adam LaRoche’s son, Drake. LaRoche retired during spring training that year after White Sox GM Kenny Williams told LaRoche not to bring 14-year-old Drake to the ballpark so often. The Drake drama divided the White Sox clubhouse, and Eaton was one of the guys on LaRoche’s side, telling 670 The Score at the time that the team “lost a leader in Drake.”
At the same time, according to Bernstein, Eaton was trying to assert himself as a team leader, attempting to fill the void left by the departure of Jimmy Rollins. “Frazier, who just happened to have the locker next door, called out Eaton for being a phony and made it clear that he lacked the standing in that room to be taken seriously as a leader,” Bernstein writes.
To defuse the tension, Eaton’s locker was moved away from Frazier’s. This is where Bernstein adds a detail that should tell you who’s right and who’s wrong in this case:
“Perhaps the best part is that Eaton claimed that he had actually wanted to move lockers the whole time, because its proximity to the doorway to the dugout tunnel made him ‘too cold.’”
If Eaton, who was a better player and had been with the team since 2014, was the one who had to move his stuff and not the guy who had just been acquired in December, it’s clear how people felt about Eaton. Just ask Ozzie Guillen, who got involved to tell Eaton “nobody liked you” in Chicago.
Mercifully, this idiotic feud appears to have run its course. The two spoke at length on the field before Tuesday’s game and seemed to bury the hatchet.
So that’s that.
The Stanley Cup Final is set
The Blues drubbed the Sharks, 5–1, to advance to their first Stanley Cup Final since 1970. They’ll face the Bruins, starting on Monday. St. Louis’s last Final appearance was also against Boston, when this happened:
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Note the fan they had to blur
Kinda creepy, Drake
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Hmm... no.
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The “horns down” at the end is a nice touch
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A good song
Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.
