Sports
In Major League Baseball, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher A. J. Burnett (formerly of the New York Yankees) pies teammates who drive in or score the winning run in a walk-off win (a game won on a hit by the last batter).
Burnett's "pies" are filled with either shaving cream or whipped cream. Burnett has pied Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, Melky Cabrera, Jorge Posada, Hideki Matsui, Nick Swisher, (twice) Robinson Canó (twice), Francisco Cervelli, Juan Miranda, Mark Teixeira, Jerry Hairston, Jr., Marcus Thames, and most recently Brett Gardner. Burnett usually pies the player while he is being interviewed on the field by a TV reporter.
The pieing tradition in baseball has extended beyond game-winning hits to any outstanding performance. Rookie Stephen Strasburg was pied by teammate John Lannan after his historic debut when he struck out 14 Pittsburgh batters. Matt Garza of the Tampa Bay Rays was pied by Evan Longoria after Garza pitched the first no-hitter in Rays history July 26, 2010. Most recently, Baltimore Orioles rookie Manny Machado was pied by teammates Robert Andino and Adam Jones after hitting two home runs (the youngest Oriole ever to do so) in only his second major league game.
On July 26, 2010, the Florida Marlins left fielder Chris Coghlan injured himself while pieing teammate Wes Helms after Helms's single won the game in the bottom of the 11th inning. In response, manager Edwin Rodriguez said that there will be no more such celebratory antics.
J.P. Arencibia was pied in the face after hitting two home runs in his MLB debut against the Rays.
Read more about this topic: Pieing
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“Come, my Celia, let us prove
While we may the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever,
He at length our good will sever.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
“...I didn’t come to this with any particular cachet. I was just a person who grew up in the United States. And when I looked around at the people who were sportscasters, I thought they were just people who grew up in the United States, too. So I thought, Why can’t a woman do it? I just assumed everyone else would think it was a swell idea.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 85 (June 17, 1991)
“Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)