Jamie Moyer Accuses Braves of Cheating, Chipper Snaps Back
You would think that a game with a total of 22 runs, 27 hits, and 4 errors (all to the Rockies of course) would have enough drama on its own. Apparently Jamie Moyer wanted some more, and now he’s getting it.
During the top of the fifth inning in yesterday’s football baseball game, Jamie Moyer stepped off of the mound and started talking to Chipper Jones, who was standing on second base. You couldn’t really tell what they were talking about at the time, but Chipper made sure to let everyone know after the game. Apparently Moyer tried to accuse Chipper of stealing signs.
"You question our integrity, that’s wrong,” Jones said. “I’ve never accused him of doctoring a baseball. I’ve never accused him of over-milligraming, nothing. That’s [garbage] and he woke us up. I didn’t see any signs on the 900-foot homers that were hit.”"
You can see in the video I linked in the hub section that Moyer steps off of the mound and says some things to Chipper. Chipper said some things back and the video ends. Clearly, before Jones got settled into his lead, he was looking back at shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and talking to him. If Chipper is able to do that while also stealing signs AND relaying them to Brian McCann (who probably couldn’t see him from there anyways) then we really have been underrating Chipper.
"“I told Helton and Tulo to tell him he could meet me in the tunnel to discuss it if he’d like, and I never heard back.”"
Clearly Chipper was upset about all of this and he has every right to be. He has played an amazing career without any sort of blemish to his name. He has succeeded in the midst of a steroid infused era with no connections to performance enhancing drugs, he has taken much less money to help his team, and he has always been a class act in baseball. Now, in his last season some one wants to call him a cheater?
If you think that Chipper Jones is in the wrong for what he said then you really need to rethink the entire situation. Watch the video. Look at all the comments that were made. Read this, this, this, and this. The last link just happens to be the Colorado recap so you can’t blame anything on bias.
Moyer also had to do more than just accuse Chipper of cheating in the middle of the inning; when he came up to bat the next inning he had a few things to say to Brian McCann. David O’Brien on Twitter:
"#Braves Chipper said Moyer came to bat and told McCann, “that (stealing signs) is how people get hurt.” #Braves were p’d off by that."
Moyer was pretty much threatening to throw at Chipper or another Brave. Obviously ballplayers don’t take to that very well and the Braves got ticked off. You can bet that the young team is going to have all sorts of motivation to finish off the sweep today.
I think Jamie Moyer deserves a few words of advice though. Don’t threaten to throw at someone unless you can at least touch 90 with the fastball.
"I don’t know what the problem was,” Jones said. “I was literally having a conversation with the shortstop when he stepped off and said that. I don’t know why he’s so paranoid. But to be honest with you, every pitch he throws is 78. So it’s not like we really have to relay signs.”"
Well said Chipper, well said.
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