Everybody's heartthrob Brian Bannister takes the ball today for the Royals, looking to prove the doubters wrong. Well, if there are any doubters left. I haven't been able to find any.
Squaring off against Banny will be the evil Kenny Rogers, potentially one of the least likable players in baseball, or any other sport. Sure, steroids destroyed our National Innocence and caused like fifteen jazillion runs (because no pitchers used PEDs, just look at the evidence) which also, somehow, destroyed our innocence, but I'll say Rogers is worse any day.
Do you remember his attack on the cameraman? Do you remember his robotic, satanic press conference when he "apologized" so insincerely for his actions? Do you remember when, two weeks later, he taunted the local media again? Sounds like a delightful guy.
All hyperbole aside, not only was his one-sided fight with the cameraman a cowardly, petty, attack on someone who was both smaller than him, and unable to defend himself, it was also potentially very dangerous. Heavy object + skull + neck isn't a winning formula. MLB is incredibly aggressive about taking things off youtube, but I found this clip of the clip, buried in an actually pretty entertaining rant by a Milwaukee sportscaster. For Rogers, goto about 2:30. Before that, for some reason dude airs ancient footage of Todd Day saying, "Milwaukee... damn" and shaking his head.
Then, there was the 2006 playoffs, which featured Rogers preening on the mound and posing like a tough guy non-stop against the Yankees. (Clearly, given the picture above, Rogers has manhood issues.) This was just a prelude to the appearance of the smudge against the Cardinals. But hey, a guy with huge favorable home splits in Texas and Minnesota isn't smudging. No.
You sir, are a disgrace to the real Kenny Rogers. The man who brought us "Lucille".
Go Royals. Beat Kenny.