Editorial: Don’t forget about Brittney Griner, and how she was supposed to go down in a single game in a meaningless All-Star Game and then completely disappeared from the game the following week, even after she was benched. There are a couple of issues. One is that Griner got benched as a part of a trade that involved one of the best players in the game moving on, in her case the most feared closer in baseball, Francisco Rodriguez. Another, more important, is that it seems as if Griner went AWOL when she was supposed to be the designated hitter and got into the batter’s box instead.
As to Griner’s game, it was her fault. In the sixth inning she gave up singles to Alex Rodriguez and Robinson Cano before being replaced with pinch runner David Ortiz, who struck out. When the Yankees came into bat, with runners on first and second, Griner was replaced by Ortiz, who was the designated hitter.
When the inning came to an end, Yankees manager Joe Torre ordered Griner to come into the batter’s box for the final at-bat. While they were arguing over who would play second base, another ball was hit.
“I was waiting for the umpire to tell me to come in,” she said. “All of a sudden I saw that one down the middle. I never saw it. I said, ‘That’s the ball I hit.’ Well, the ball hit me in the face, and that was that.”
But that’s what happens when you’re a first-year major leaguer with a.206 average in two games, one of them an All-Star Game.
The game started and it took a while for the umpires to realize that the ball was struck on the bat of the umpire, which is an even worse situation for the umpires. In the fifth inning Yadi Hernandez, the second batter of the game, was hit in the back of the head with a ball, and he was carried from the batter’s box. Hernandez, who was sitting on the bench after being hit by a pitch, was helped to the
