News: The Nationals are Cheerleaders
Nelson Figueroa allowed five hits and six runs, four earned, while blowing three seperate one-run leads.
Figueroa told reporters that the cold, damp weather did not impact his ability to grip and throw the ball adding…
“At times it seemed like every pitch wouldn’t work. I literally tried to throw balls down the middle just to let them hit it. When they did, they fouled off six or seven pitches in a row…My pitch counts have been climbing…You’ve got to make that one pitch to get that one out.”
Figueroa, on the Nationals, who were singing, chanting and cheering against the Mets from their dugout, during last night’ game:
“They were cheerleading in the dugout like a bunch of softball girls. I’m a professional, just like anybody else. I take huge offense to that. If that’s what a last-place team needs to do to fire themselves up, so be it. I think you need to show a little bit more class, a little bit more professionalism. They won tonight, but again, in the long run, they are who they are…Even for the manager and the coaching staff to let that stuff carry on, it’s truly unprofessional. That’s why they are who they are.”
Milledge, regarding Figueroa’s comments…
“Well, what were we supposed to do? We’re not supposed to cater to anybody on the opposing team. We’re not going to cater to him or anybody else. We’ve been down the last couple of days and we wanted to get something going, and if he doesn’t like it, then he’s got to deal with it. Anybody don’t like it, they just have to deal with it.”
Reporters did not ask Randolph about the cheerleading.
…i was at the game but was informed of the elijah-dukes-led ‘cheerleading’ via phone call…i can’t speak to the classiness of the taunts, but it doesn’t seem very professional from afar…i do know that the people in the picnic area where i was were yelling some horrible things to Lastings Milledge for the whole entire game, several fans even got thrown out because of it…
…i have no problem with taunting other teams’ players, but it’s not like milledge traded himself…the trade seems to have worked out in the mets’ favor so i’m obviously happy about that…but, and i may be in the minority here, i didn’t dislike lastings, so personally, i just don’t get the hostility…
