Pro Baseball Players! They’re Just Like Us. . . Only with Hemorrhoids
We’ve always held a particularly black spot in our cold shriveled hearts for Detroit first baseman Carlos Guillen. This derives from the days of yore when the Mariner’s weren’t the worst team in baseball and he was their young SS/3B. Back then we were bright eyed under graduates in the Northwest (Missionaries! Missionaries! We’re on top!) and the only televised baseball were the Mariners and their homer announcers who insisted on calling him a five-tool player.
The five-tools in baseball are the ability to hit for average, the ability to hit for power, speed on the bases/in the field, a strong arm and the ability to field well. By any definition, in 2001 when he got this mantle he wasn’t (.259 batting average, 5 home runs, 4 stolen bases, .911 fielding percentage.) It wasn’t his fault that the Mariner’s announcers are were idiots, but Carlos and his five tools became the joke (sort of like the current “Richie Sexson is a dynamic baseball machine” joke that is so popular with the kids these days.)
Regardless, this is all background to part of why we find Carlos Guillen’s current situation so amusing: he’s DHing because his hemorrhoids hurt too much to play 3rd base. We can only hope he either goes on the DL or develops the legendary 6th tool: ability to play with hemorrhoids.
