Poor Mike Hampton

Yesterday Braves pitcher Mike Hampton made his first start in about two years. If you don't know his story it's a pretty sad one. He was an alright pitcher and then out of no where set the world on fire in '99 with a 22-4 record and a sub 3 ERA, he also pitched 239 innings so he seemed to be pretty durable too. The next year he had another decent season with the Mets, 15 wins, 3.14 ERA, and again he pitched over 200 innings.

Then the Rockies signed him to a retardedly huge contract (Barry Zito style) that he didn't deserve. Then he started to, in baseball terms, suck massive balls (Barry Zito style). Most people blame it on playing in Coors Field, which is possible, but still his ERA and WHIP took a pretty big jump considering his previous years, regardless of where he played.

After Colorado had enough of watching him shit all over their payroll they traded him to Atlanta (although he still shit all over their payroll for a couple more years, since Scheurholtz got the Rox to pay a considerable portion of his salary, they just didn't have to watch him do it).

He had a decent first two seasons in Atlanta, then something happened. I think he pissed off a gypsy, because that is the only way someone could have as much bad luck as him. He got hurt, got Tommy John surgery, sat out a year, then got hurt again, missed another year, then got hurt again and missed almost half of this year, all he while having one of the top 5 salaries on Atlanta's payroll.

And then, this happened yesterday..........

IP H R ER BB SO HR
4.0 8 6 6 2 1 0



Not a very good line. What the line doesn't show is that all those runs he let up helped blow a 6 FUCKING RUN LEAD, the Braves scored 9 runs in one inning, and then Hampton helped the Phillies get back in the game by letting up 6, Cox took him out before things got worse but thankfully the Atlanta bullpen was there to seal the deal and let up a few more runs so that the Phillies could make it to 10 and beat Atlanta 10-9......10-9, Atlanta couldn't score one single run in any other inning of that game.

But hey that's how Braves have liked to roll lately, can't blame 'em really. But you can feel bad for poor old Hampton. He finally comes back, this is his big break. Then Atlanta puts a 9 spot up for him, to give him all the help he needs. It's as if they said...

"Hey Mikey, here's 9 runs for ya, go out there, throw five and don't pitch like a complete asshole because with a 6 run lead a team would have to be retarded to lose this game"

But then Mike Hampton's thoughts went back to that cold winter night that he hit a gypsy with his car and his mind began to fog, his arm flailing about, hurling the ball right over the middle of the plate, a strange language began to fill his head, he knew the gypsy's black magic was again at work, and although the curse had given him a slim sexy body, it had ruined his muscles and stolen from him his ability to competently pitch a major league baseball game.

Do not fuck with gypsies.