Milwaukee Brewers shortstop Cooper Pratt has a bright future ahead of him, but it is brighter now because his manager, Pat Murphy taught him a lesson about what it means to be a professional in general and a Major League Baseball player in particular.
As you can see in the video, Pratt hit what looked like an easily caught pop-up in the fifth-inning of last night’s game against the New York Mets, so he jogged down the baseline more slowly than Pete Rose used to run to first after a base on balls. The Mets, because they stink this year, managed to mess up the play and the ball dropped in for what would have been a double if the kid had been running hard. Standing on first, he looked surprised to see that Murphy was replacing him with a pinch-runner, pulling him off the field in an old-school public rebuke for unprofessional play.