Tampa Bay Rays: Colby Rasmus Sounds Off at Introductory Press Conference

In his first press conference with the Tampa Bay Rays, outfielder Colby Rasmus had some passionate words about the Gold Glove award, Tony La Russa and long hair.

Two summers ago, a Twitter poll asked the question—Who does Colby Rasmus look like: Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Undertaker, Indiana Jones, or the landlord from Kingpin? The consensus was that the furry-faced, long-haired Rasmus – now a member of the Tampa Bay Rays – looked like Stevie Ray Vaughan, the hard-rocking guitarist popular in the late 70s and early 80s. Rasmus has also been compared to Dave Grohl, Kelly Leak, and one of the guys from the pop band Hanson (doesn’t matter which one).

With his long, straggly hair, Rasmus does have a different look from many major league players, but it’s not like we haven’t seen it before. The Mets have a pair of pitchers, Jacob deGrom and Robert Gsellman, who look like they’re competing in a longest hair contest (teammate Noah Syndergaard is a distant third). Jayson Werth looks like the caveman from GEICO. Brandon Crawford could be driving across the country in an 18-wheeler. In the past, there was Johnny “Looks Like Jesus, Throws Like Mary” Damon and the King of the Mullet, Randy Johnson.

Rasmus thinks his long hair has hurt his career. At his first press conference as a Tampa Bay Rays player, he was asked why he didn’t win a Gold Glove last season. His response pulled no punches. He said, “You know how the game is. In the show, they don’t necessarily like long hair and redneck folks. That’s just the way it goes. My good old friend Tony La Russa, he has a lot of pull in the game, so you never know.”

Rasmus and La Russa have feuded for years, going back to the beginning of Rasmus’ career when he played for the St. Louis Cardinals and La Russa was the manager. After two full seasons and part of a third, Rasmus was traded by the Cardinals to the Blue Jays in 2011. After the trade, Rasmus’ father ripped into La Russa, saying, “Tony would like to have 25 pitchers, like he thinks he has to put his stamp on every ballgame. They had nothing else to trade. I think everyone is better off now.”

A few years later, Rasmus said, “I just wanted to play and have fun. Tony didn’t really want me to play and have fun. I don’t really know what his underlying things were, but I was young and full of life and he kind of took that away from me a little.” He did add that if he could go back he would try to have “more of an understanding of why La Russa was the way he was.”

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Rasmus has always been more of a free spirit than many players and La Russa has a conservative background. In 2010, he attended a Glenn Beck “Restoring Honor” rally that featured Sarah Palin and 20,000 Tea Party supporters on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

That same year, a group of St. Louis Tea Party activists attended a Cardinals game against the Arizona Diamondbacks to show their support for Arizona’s new anti-illegal immigration law (Arizona HB 2162). This was a controversial bill that the MLB players union had condemned, along with many other organizations. It was nicknamed the “papers please” law and a court challenge made it all the way to the Supreme Court. One part of the law was upheld, while three other provisions were struck down as unconstitutional. La Russa praised the law, saying, “I’m actually a supporter of what Arizona’s doing.” He also supported the Tea Party activists, saying “. . . a lot of things they do I think are correct.”

Despite what Rasmus thinks, it’s hard to imagine Tony La Russa trying to deny Colby Rasmus the Gold Glove award. It would be petty and vengeful for La Russa to go out of his way to deny an award to a former player who he once squabbled with. Then again, La Russa did go into the Pittsburgh Pirates’ broadcast booth in the middle of a game to argue with Pirates announcer Greg Brown about some things Brown said. Most people in baseball thought La Russa was way out of line to enter the press box during the game. Brown was shocked at La Russa’s behavior and spoke about it on the air.

Rasmus didn’t stop with his mention of his “good old friend Tony La Russa” in his first press conference with the Rays. He also said, “The way I play it, some people don’t like that. I think the fans like it a little more. The folks up top may not like it quite as much, the sabermetric guys, things like that, catching balls out of my range, or however they do it. I try to get myself in the best position to try to get us on and off the field as quick as possible. That’s my goal.”

In defense of the “sabermetric guys,” I will point out that Rasmus was rated very good on defense by the metrics in 2016. He played the majority of his innings in left field and led all AL left fielders in UZR (11.3). The player who won the Gold Glove for AL left fielders was Brett Gardner. Gardner was fourth in UZR at the position, behind Rasmus, Alex Gordon and Corey Dickerson. If the “sabermetric guys” had their way, Rasmus might have won the Gold Glove. As it is, the Gold Glove award has a sabermetric component that accounts for approximately 25 percent of the vote. The bulk of the award is based on voting by managers and coaches in each league.

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Then again, Gardner played 1,219 innings in left field to Rasmus’ 672.1. That likely played a big part in the minds of the voters. The guy who really has an argument for winning the Gold Glove over Gardner is Alex Gordon, who played 1,100 innings and had a UZR of 8.9 to Gardner’s 3.5. Neither was as good as Rasmus by the metrics, but both had a 400-plus innings advantage. That likely had more to do with Rasmus not winning the Gold Glove than the length of his hair.

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