Buffalo Boy's Blog

Look, I understand that baseball players and other professional athletes have lives outside of their respective sports, but Alex Rios has taken it to another level.

His fiance gave birth yesterday to a baby and he took full advantage of an allowance for him to leave the team for 3 days to be with her in Puerto Rico. This all takes place just at the time the Jays are finally starting to look like a baseball team again and Cito Gaston has them playing some decent baseball. They had a chance this weekend to catch up to the Yankees and get to .500 or better.

Instead Rios, is in Puerto Rico and most of us would probably take the same liberties he is. The only difference is that he, as a professional athlete and arguably the best offensive weapon on his team, is paid millions of dollars and just got a substantial raise earlier in the year to be on the field in a crucial series before the All Star Break.

The Jays were within 10 games, a magic mark right now, beat the Yankees 2 out of three or incredibly enough sweep them (which after todays 9-4 loss eliminates that option) and you look really good, even if you don't have Vernon Wells, Aaron Hill and two of your better pitchers for the foreseeable future.

This team has young pitching who they can call up to do the job, John Parrish is a veteran lefty who will fill in nicely, and yet, here is Rios with probably the worst planned pregnancy in the history of this team.

Im not saying don't have kids, or family isn't or shouldn't be important to these guys, but here we are, one of if not the most important series of the season that could determine what this team does at the trade deadline, after you sign a long term extension worth big bucks, you could plan your pregnancy with your fiance a little better next time Alex. Thats all.

I guarantee you, Jeter wouldn't even think about having a kid with his wife between April and November. I guess thats the difference between the Yankees and the Blue Jays, some players and organizations have their priorites straight when it comes to their professions and the relative dollars they get paid to do their "jobs".

I wonder how Cito feels about it. Rios could be back tomorrow but he won't be, he will take full advantage of the three days he gets, which means hes going to get a good long All Star break.

Let's hope this good long break is what he needs to get his head on straight, the distraction of his pregnant fiance is over, now lets get on to mashing baseballs like we saw him do last All Star game in the home run derby. In the meantime, the Jays need to salvage tomorrow's rubber match with the Yankees and head into this thing on a positive note and who knows, maybe, they get more good news with a return of Aaron Hill too.