© Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports
On Friday morning 3-time world champion Jeremy Affeldt took time away from fighting scorpions on his Texas vacation to sit down with Murph & Mac to discuss the highly anticipated rematch of Madison Bumgarner v. Max Muncy.
On June 9 Muncy blasted a mammoth home run off of Bumgarner in which Muncy took his time admiring, which caused Bumgarner to chirp back at Muncy. While Muncy was finishing rounding the bases, Muncy fiercely instructed Bumgarner to fetch his home run “out of the ocean”. Thursday night the Giants started a series with the Dodgers down at Chavez Ravine, and Bumgarner made what many believe to be his final start in a Giants uniform against the archrival Dodgers, and all eyes were on the big lefty.
Before Thursday night’s game, several of the Dodgers took to warmups while wearing royal blue shirts reading “Go get it out of the ocean”. To add another strife, Dodger stadium played the Little Mermaid’s “Under the Sea” when Bumgarner took the mound in the first inning. Jeremey Affeldt took no time shying away from these adversities as he explained to Murph & Mac these antics to be “minor league” and instigative.
“The Dodgers, they always do stuff like that, they wear their stupid t-shirts or whatever; they make stuff up,” Affeldt said, referring to Yasiel Puig’s noted “Puig your friend” shirt.
“It’s easy to wear those shirts when you have 51 wins… and teams do have fun that way,” Affeldt said. “Basically, it was a stupid comment that made no sense. So, now you’re wearing a stupid shirt that makes no sense about a stupid comment. You’re not showing your intelligence there really, but I understand what they’re doing.”
Affeldt, a former LHP who was an integral part of three separate World Series title runs in San Francisco this past decade, is certainly someone who is an expert on the “do’s & don’t’s” of baseball culture. Although the cultural landscape of MLB is undoubtedly changing, Affeldt attests that lowering to the level of pettiness that the Dodgers displayed yesterday (and years prior) will only cause harmful situations to arise.
“It’s not just that,” Affeldt said. “It’s the shirt thing and then all of a sudden it’s the first inning, Bum’s coming out and they play the Little Mermaid song. And then bases loaded, and they show Lou Seal around sharks in the Bay. You see all these things that they do, and for me, it’s just so minor league when they do that stuff. It’s just not what you do at a big league level. But then all of a sudden, if he hits you in the back, and there’s a huge fight that breaks out, you can’t sit there and say ‘well, we didn’t do anything’. No, you egged it on …”
Despite the discrepancy of their records, Giants-Dodgers is always sure to entertain.