Joba's Fist Gets Him in Trouble Again

For a pitcher with 37 innings under his belt, Joba Chamberlain's generated a lot of controversy. There were the "Joba Rules," the way he dealt with the bugs in Cleveland and the feud between his team's owner and general manager. Those all seem temporal, though there's one talking point that won't seem to leave him alone.

Chamberlain struck out David Dellucci to end the eighth inning at Yankee Stadium yesterday and then unlelashed his now-familiar fist pump and yell. That Dellucci beat Chamberlain and the Yankees on Tuesday night with a three-run homer in the same spot couldn't have been far from his mind, not that he needs much goading. Chamberlain caught flak for doing the same thing against Frank Thomas in April though the Big Hurt wasn't the one giving it to him. This time around Dellucci wasn't so kind.

"If he wants to yell and scream after a strikeout and dance around the mound, that's what gets him going. My home run was in a much bigger situation, a much more key part of the game, but I didn't dance around and scream."

I'm all for emotion in sports. A pump of the fist, a yell, a little excitement about what you've done is cool by me. It's nothing that gets noticed in any sport but baseball, hell even golfers get away with it, and that doesn't make much sense.

Chamberlain is clearly an emotional sort, maybe even a bit of a drama queen. After giving up the Dellucci home run on Tuesday, he looked like his dog had just run away and sat in the dugout with a towel on his head like Stephon Marbury. He's far from the only pitcher who reacts like that in either direction and it's never been something that offended me.

If there's any reason to get upset about the fist pump, it's that it was a 6-3 game with no one on and two out. Chamberlain's celebration, then, was more about getting Dellucci back than the actual moment in the game. If Dellucci or another hitter hits a home run in a 6-3 game, stands and admires it for an extra beat it would seem like excessive celebration given the weight of the situation. That goes across the board, though, so Dellucci may want to tell C.C. Sabathia to cool it when he pitches his way out of a fourth inning jam.