Who gives a toss, was the Big Apple reaction, so long as Donaldson befitted those pinstripes between the lines. Even if Donaldson did arrive trailing some whispers of having been a bad clubhouse element with the Twins. But the Bronx denizens have a long history of embracing rogues and renegades, for all that there’s a “Yankee Way” of doing things. And certainly once the endlessly crucified Joey Gallo was granted his escape from New York to the Dodgers organization. Well, possibly a tie with Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who arrived in the Bronx with Donaldson in that blockbuster March trade that rid the club of Gary Sánchez, along with Gio Urshela. In any event, Major League Baseball didn’t buy Donaldson’s “Who, me?” forelock tugging either, fining and suspending him for a game.Įven if acknowledging Donaldson’s jagged edges, it’s difficult to reconcile the superstar Toronto knew and adored during his four seasons as a Blue Jay with the Donaldson whose subsequent peripatetic career - Cleveland, Atlanta, Minnesota and now New York - has transformed the 36-year-old into arguably the most unloved of Yankees at Yankee Stadium. Hendriks slammed Donaldson’s exculpation as “complete and utter bulls-t.” Chirping “Jackie-Jackie-Jackie” after Anderson had - three years earlier - compared himself to “kind of a new” Jackie Robinson, which is rather self-aggrandizing, no? Donaldson insisted his trash-talking had no racist intent or subtext all just part of an inside joke. With some former teammates - come on down Liam Hendriks - crawling out of the woodwork to slag ’n’ slur, when they apparently didn’t have the nerve to man-up face him back in the day, that’s just tawdry.Īt least Hendriks didn’t hide behind anonymity when he called out Donaldson in May over remarks the third baseman had made about Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson, which led to a bench-clearing hoo-ha. And in what turned out to be Donaldson’s MVP season, the j’accuse onus rested comfortably on both his personality and his role as protagonist in that macho lineup.īut to see him demonized now as some kind of diabolical presence within the New York Yankees universe is mind-boggling. Somebody has to hold a clubhouse accountable. Such as when he observed: “This isn’t the try league, this is the ‘get it done’ league.” That was after his Blue Jays had been swept by Houston early in the 2015 campaign and he was justifiably steaming about it. As in devilishly blunt, with a flick of the hissing tongue. It can be said that Josh Donaldson has always had a bit of the devil in him.
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