AJ Burnett-You'll pry that pie from my cold, dead hand!

Boy, do I ever love this picture.

Mark Fiensand of the NY Daily News caught up with AJ Burnett before last night’s game and asked him if he plans on curbing his pie-throwing antics in light of a recent mishap with the Florida Marlins. Here’s the story:

CLEVELAND – Celebrating has become dangerous in baseball, but don’t expect A.J. Burnett to curb his pie throwing.

Florida‘s Chris Coghlan tore the meniscus in his left knee on Sunday as he jumped to deliver a celebratory pie in the face of Wes Helms following his walk-off single. Coghlan, the 2009 NL Rookie of the Year, might require surgery that would sideline him for the next 6-8 weeks.

“I feel sorry for him,” Burnett said. “You cant take the fun out of the game, but you have to do it right, I guess. It’s an unfortunate incident, but I’m still going to throw pies.”

Burnett has delivered about 20 pies since joining the Yankees.

“I don’t exactly go full-sprint at somebody with a pie,” Burnett said. “Stuff happens, I guess. I always try to somewhat think safety first – unless I’m snapping – even when I’m pie-ing.”

Coghlan is the second player to suffer a serious injury this season following a walk-off win. Kendry Morales of the Angels suffered a broken leg after jumping on home plate in May.

“It’s a shame that it happened that way,” Joe Girardi said of Coghlan’s injury. “A.J. has had a lot of practice at it and seems pretty efficient at it. It’s a fine line that you walk, but I have not said anything to our players about taking it away.”

We’ve taken an already silly situation and managed to make it even sillier. I haven’t heard any calls to end walk-off celebrations after Kendry Morales’ broke his ankle earlier this year. Maybe AJ should wear an army helmet and tape himself in bubble wrap as he runs on the field. These things fall into the category of “Freak Injury” the kind of thing that can happen in a million different ways, and trying to prevent them would be a fool’s errand. The logic behind banning these things reminds me of an old joke by comedian George Carlin-

"A man shot six people on the downtown bus today, then asked for a
transfer and shot six people on the crosstown bus.  In order to
prevent this from happening in the future, authorities are
discontinuing the transfer system."