One of Mark Shapiro’s first orders of business will be handling his diva, Jose Bautista, who is demanding a five year, $150 million dollar deal. That is a great deal of money for a player who could get popped for steroids at any time, plus Bautista is old. Sure, Jello isn’t his primary diet like Albert Pujols, but the dude won’t be that far away from enjoying AARP benefits when that contract is over, assuming he isn’t in prison for some sort of violent assault then. He already is four years older than Jim Thome when Shapiro let him walk.
Meanwhile it appears Shapiro’s new lackey, Ross Atkins, has a rather creepy crush on Bautista that probably contains prison sex fantasies. In a recent interview with ESPN, Atkins talked about how much he loves being around Bautista because Bautista fires him up. Of course, Ross never was around talent like that in Cleveland because Larry Dolan and Shapiro had strict rules to ensure high priced talent wasn’t allowed in an Indians’ uniform.
The seven Blue Jays’ fans who aren’t still basking in the glow of the greatest NBA All Star Weekend in the last two decades are hoping that a fast start by their team will ensure that Shapiro doesn’t kick off another one of his legendary fire sales. What these fools don’t remember is that the Indians started 11-1 that season, and Shapiro was singing the praises of Ricky Gutierrez, then the bottom fell out, allowing Shapiro to trade every decent player to parlay that into one playoff appearance six years later.
Of course, Shapiro and his humping lap dog Atkins will not be able to trade Bautista if an errant pitch shatters Jose’s wrist, so Shapiro might just want to start the fire sale sooner than later.
Dead Religions 