Freddy Garcia pitches badly in day games

DMZ · May 1, 2006 at 12:02 am · Filed Under Mariners 

…in order to be taken out before 4:20.

Former Mariner and sometimes lamented trade victim Freddy Garcia tested positive for marijuana at the WBC. Not that MLB.com is like Pravda back in the day, but if it’s running there, you know it’s trouble.

We ran our share of posts mocking Freddy-as-partyhead back in the day (okay, I ran posts…) but forget that for a second — if nothing else, if he’s still smoking, it means that married life hasn’t straightened him entirely out.

Anyway, Freddy’s in good company, though I’ll spare everyone a long digression about the insanity of dope-paranoia.

Comments

41 Responses to “Freddy Garcia pitches badly in day games”

  1. gwo on May 1st, 2006 1:45 am

    The ban on marijuana by WADA and other international bodies is silly. It’s legal in some of the governed countries (the Dutch play a reasonable game of baseball, by European standards), and it’s performance enhancing in exactly the same way alcohol isn’t.

  2. DMZ on May 1st, 2006 1:54 am

    Uh, I think you mean “alcohol is”

  3. gwo on May 1st, 2006 1:56 am

    No. Well, literally, yes, but I was channeling the Douglas Adams “hung in the air exactly the way bricks don’t” line.

    PS : Only two ‘A’s in Pravda.

  4. Typical Idiot Fan on May 1st, 2006 2:55 am

    Reefer Madness!

  5. seank100 on May 1st, 2006 6:46 am

    “…in order to be taken out by 4:20.” – hil-ar-i-ous

    There’s a comedian, whose name escapes me, has a bit about screening for pot as a performance enhancing drug. The punch line is something along the lines of, “Sure, pot’s a performance enhancing drug…if there’s a pile of Twinkies at the end of the race.”

  6. Duff on May 1st, 2006 7:06 am

    Robin Williams

  7. Tek Jansen on May 1st, 2006 8:12 am

    I can only assume that Freddy uses that marijuana for strictly medicinal purposes.

  8. argh on May 1st, 2006 8:14 am

    I’ve heard rumors that even married people light up from time to time, but that was probably just from liberals who hate marriage.

  9. Mariner Fan in CO Exile on May 1st, 2006 8:24 am

    I don’t think the illegality should be the focus. MJ may not be performance-enhancing, but it is “motivation and concentration-killing” for many people, depending on personality. For a guy that pitches with marginal intensity, and never has truly performed up to the level of his stuff consistently, I don’t think he needs anything else to add to focus (and work ethic) problems. I see some troubling things in Felix that remind me of Garcia (and it doesn’t help that Garcia is his idol). Let’s hope the similarities down the road stop at the jersey number, and Felix doesn’t decide to party with/like Freddy and toke up in his down time. It may not be performance-enhancing, or take a toll on his body in a serious way, but I’d rather he was watching game film, taking stock of upcoming pitchers and getting pitching tips from Jamie Moyer or Roger Clemens rather than watching Bevis and Butthead re-runs all night and making 2 am trips to Taco Bell (2 things I enjoyed very much, but don’t think help a young kid who has the weight of the franchise on his shoulders).

    **Nothing in this post is even remotely close to an accusation that Felix does anything but work hard, and in no way do I believe he is currently using drugs. I do nothing more than observe that he idolizes Freddy, and carries himself similarly on the mound, and is bound to get together with him in the future from time to time.

  10. Steve T on May 1st, 2006 9:00 am

    Being twenty is movitation and concentration-killing for many people. Especially in the spring!

  11. Mariner Fan in CO Exile on May 1st, 2006 9:12 am

    #10. True enough. Throw in groupies wherever you go, more money than you could have ever imagined, and everyone telling you you are already the man, and an MJ habit would be even more of a problem. At least Freddy could get happy in relative mediocrity, and mid-level visibility. Felix would be everyday news, and a huge distraction for all invovled. And yes, people would care enough to write about it for many many years. All stuff I hope we never have to deal with.

  12. Jim Thomsen on May 1st, 2006 9:13 am

    So when will the Mariners’ brass be suspended for its ruinous addiction to Meche-amphetamine?

  13. Username on May 1st, 2006 9:15 am

    Great post; very humorously written!

    #9 – It’s Be[a]vis and Butthead!

  14. Evan on May 1st, 2006 9:20 am

    hung in the air exactly the way bricks don’t

    Yes, but the Vogon ships actually did hang in the air.

    I don’t see why you’d expect married life to get him off pot. My perception may be influenced somewhat by living in Vancouver (source of most of the pot you’ve ever seen in your life), but it’s not exactly the sort of drug one hides from one’s family.

  15. Mariner Fan in CO Exile on May 1st, 2006 9:26 am

    #14 – “it’s not exactly the sort of drug one hides from one’s family.”

    Unless, of course, your uncle is also now your manager by virture of the marriage. I suspect he would at least stop taking the bong to extended-family Thanksgiving get-togethers. Probably not a secret from the wifey, though.

  16. Mariner Fan in CO Exile on May 1st, 2006 9:28 am

    I meant “her” uncle is also now your manager . .

  17. Jim Thomsen on May 1st, 2006 9:40 am

    Well, we all know Carlos Guillen was scoring the good stuff for Freddy. That’s why he had to be dumped for nothing.

  18. Choska on May 1st, 2006 9:56 am

    Was the reference to Freddy wanting to be out of games by 4:20 a reference to the old Steve Martin routine of never smoking at dusk, or have I just really dated myself?

  19. Steve T on May 1st, 2006 9:58 am
  20. dw on May 1st, 2006 10:02 am

    My Gawd. It’s all explained.

    The slouching.
    The disheveled look on the mound.
    The deer in the headlights look.
    The inability some nights to do anything but groove the ball.
    The occasional shots of him in the dugout shoveling Doritos into his mouth.

    OK, that last one’s not true.

  21. dw on May 1st, 2006 10:06 am

    My perception may be influenced somewhat by living in Vancouver (source of most of the pot you’ve ever seen in your life)

    Actually, having grown up in Oklahoma and gone to school in Colorado, most of the weed I’ve ever seen has either come from Ozark foothills around Tahlequah or from New Mexico.

    Not that I ever smoked it, mind you. But I was in Boulder, where the entire student body lives with a perpetual contact high.

  22. Evan on May 1st, 2006 10:16 am

    I do get the impression in Vancouver that if I meet 10 people in a day, 7 of them are at least occasional users.

  23. joser on May 1st, 2006 10:33 am

    Then there’s Ross Rebagliati, the Canadian snowboarder who briefly had his gold medal at Nagano taken away for testing positve. Given what THC does to your reaction time, it seemed to me he deserved another medal (for the biathalon, perhaps?)

    Who knows, maybe it helps Freddy. I used to know a guy who was so nervous when he first learned to drive that he was actually a better driver after a drink or two (beyond that, of course, he was much worse and we wouldn’t let him drive). I wonder if a mellowing agent would help, say, Eddie. Well, at the very least it would help those of us watching him in the 9th.

  24. colm on May 1st, 2006 10:35 am

    And source of the best ever Winter Olympic tee shirt:
    “Spliff up a fatty for Rebagliati”

  25. dw on May 1st, 2006 10:36 am

    I wonder if a mellowing agent would help, say, Eddie. Well, at the very least it would help those of us watching him in the 9th.

    I don’t see how THC is going to reverse the effects of long-term shoulder damage.

  26. Jim Thomsen on May 1st, 2006 10:47 am

    And here I thought “firing up a fatty” referred to the M’s efforts to get Eddie Guardado on track.

  27. Ed on May 1st, 2006 10:49 am

    I certainly could use something to keep from puking when Eddie’s on the mound.

  28. Evan on May 1st, 2006 11:18 am

    Ross Rebagliati

    If he’d been from anywhere else other than Vancouver and Whistler, his story about “second-hand toke” would have been laughable. Here? You can get that just going to the mall.

  29. DMZ on May 1st, 2006 11:43 am

    Maybe he’s being unjustly punished for being a habitual viewer of the Chroic(what)cles of Narnia back in December. That stuff stays in your system for a long time, doesn’t it?

  30. Rain Delay on May 1st, 2006 11:45 am

    DMZ- THC can stay in your system from 30-60 days depending on your usage.

  31. DMZ on May 1st, 2006 11:55 am

    Dosage or usage? Both would seem to — never mind.

  32. wabbles on May 1st, 2006 1:09 pm

    Maybe a certain former 1996 first round draft choice can try marijuana to see if it enhances his performance. “DUDE! Look at that base on balls! And that homer! COOL!”

  33. Seatown4Life on May 1st, 2006 1:32 pm

    THC can be out of your systme in under a week depending on the type of person you are. The easiest way to get it out is sweating and antioxidents (cranberry juice). The one thing that worries me with young people and $$ isn’t pot, its cocaine.
    Marijuana isn’t a dangerous drug if you use it correctly, for lazy people with poor work ethics pot isn’t for you. For athletes the side effects of laziness is pretty much squased b/c they sweat out the lingering THC which is usually the cause of a “weed hangover” or that lazy feeling you get the next day. My guess is Freddy like to smoke when he’s done pitching b/c marijuana is one of the oldest natural pain killers on the market. However if Freddy is using it before games to zone him in then that is a different story, this can be argued many ways but personally I think weed is a peformance enhancing drug, it calms the nerves and proivdes hightened focus if the user is profficient in concentrating while “hopped up”. This is a fun thread, I always thought Freddy was a pot-head, my guess is Lincoln wasn’t too found of the movie Easy Rider so he shipped the CHEEF out of town.

    ST4L

  34. Jim Thomsen on May 1st, 2006 2:12 pm

    Maybe this now frees Freddy to start experimenting with a spliff-fingered fastball.

  35. jefffrane on May 1st, 2006 3:23 pm

    How can anyone have a discussion about weed and athletes and never once mention the NBA? Or, more specifically, the Blazers.

    Somehow, they managed to play basketballs and fill a Hummer with a Cheech and Chong cloud of smoke on a regular basis. Maybe it’s simply a matter of not getting high before the game.

  36. Evan on May 1st, 2006 3:31 pm

    So that’s why Vancouver lost its basketball team…

  37. Smegmalicious on May 1st, 2006 4:02 pm

    If it makes anyone feel better, a close personal friend of mine is next door neighbots and friends with Freddy’s old dealer.

    Pro-Tip: He wasn’t just smoking pot. Well at least he wasn’t just buying pot. Anyway, I don’t want to make rndom accusations it’s just what I hear from a friend I implicitly trust.

    Honestly even if he’s just smoking pot, I’d say the percentage of kids his age who do is really really high so given that he ‘only works every fifth day’ and has a ton of cash I’m not shocked.

  38. jtopps on May 1st, 2006 4:02 pm

    Jim Thomsen- With not one, but TWO hilarious comments. I love it.

  39. wabbles on May 1st, 2006 4:19 pm

    Well, starters PLAY every fifth day. But if you’ve ever been in the clubhouse during FanFest, you’ll see the schedule that pitchers are required to follow on their “off-days.”

  40. Malo on May 1st, 2006 8:33 pm

    26 – That’s just beautiful.

  41. dnc on May 1st, 2006 9:49 pm

    DMZ with a quality 4:20 line, AND a Lazy Sunday reference in the same thread!

    I need to stop by here more often…

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