Sodo No Mojo
The Seattle Mariners appear ready to sign outfielder/designated hitter Carl Everett to the team. In honor of this incredibly stupid move, here are some choice quotes from a Sports Illustrated piece on the troubled player.
Carl Everett is a man of conviction. As an Apostolic Christian, he believes that the Bible, interpreted literally, is the infallible authority on all matters. As the cocksure centerfielder for the Boston Red Sox he believes in taking on pitchers and questions alike with the same absolute assuredness. The man plays and talks with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Just ask.Interleague play? “Don’t like it,” Everett responds. “They only have it because of two teams [the New York Mets and the New York Yankees]. It’s all about the money.” Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter? “Not a star.” The Mets, one of his former teams? “All those [management] people are hypocrites and idiots.” The Atlanta Braves’ starting pitchers? “You can run on them all day.” Big cities? “Hate ‘em. I need space.” American League baseball? “Boring.” Dinosaurs? “Didn’t exist.”
Uh, come again?
“God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam and Eve,” Everett said last Friday, before the Red Sox lost two of three in Atlanta. “The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can’t say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Someone actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus rex.”
What about dinosaur bones?
“Made by man,” he says.
There’s also this:
While with the Mets, Everett was kicked out of winter ball in Venezuela for going into the stands after some fans who Everett claimed were throwing beer at him. In 1997 he and his wife, Linda, were charged with abusing Carl’s six-year-old daughter, Shawna, and their five-year-old son, Carl IV. The charges were dropped, but a New York Family Court judge ruled that Linda, the girl’s stepmother, inflicted “excessive corporal punishment” on the children and that Carl did little to stop her. The couple retained custody of Carl IV — they also have three other children — but Shawna was placed in the care of her maternal grandmother, where she remains.
And don’t even get Carl started on the gays.
I know the Mariners are freaking out about back-to-back abysmal seasons, but if you’re trying to win back fans signing this dundherhead is not the shrewdest of moves.
As a former Bostonian, I am well aware of Everett's past buffoonery (note that article is over 5 years old). Having seen him play for the White Sox during the ALCS and the World series, however, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm not saying he's given up his bible-lovin', dinosaur-disbelievin' ways, but he's being hired to play baseball, not teach science, and he plays baseball pretty darn well. He also seems to have cooled off somewhat in the past few years. And I agree with him about Jeter.