Jonny Gomes gets 'worst news' of his baseball career
Jonny Gomes, part of the 2015 World Series-winning Kansas City Royals (who you might remember from his enthusiastic World Series parade speech), recently received some bad news.
“I’ve been sent down. I’ve been non-tendered, whatever,” Gomes said. “But this is probably the worst news of my professional baseball career.”
What news would make him say something like that? According to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports, Gomes has not been invited to the White House with other members of the 2015 World Series champion Royals.
As you might expect, the Royals couldn’t just bring everyone who wanted to attend, or even everyone who contributed to their World Series victory. The White House restricted the number of people who could attend, which means that the Royals, i.e. team ownership. GM Dayton Moore, and other team decision-makers, had to make some tough choices.
The Royals decided to include only players who were with the team for the entire season or members of their postseason roster.
Gomes, despite his well-known patriotism, didn’t meet either criteria. Gomes was traded to the Royals on August 31, 2015, and played in just 12 games before he was left off the postseason roster. Gomes had been playing in Japan for the Rakuten Golden Eagles until early May when he and the team parted ways. He’s currently a free agent.
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Gomes isn’t the only member of the 2015 Royals to not make the guest list. Rosenthal named several other Royals employees who weren’t invited.
The list of team employees who will not be present includes team physician Dr. Vincent Key, scouting director Lonnie Goldberg, professional scouting director Gene Watson and director of baseball operations/analytics Mike Groopman. Don Free, who is in his 31st year as producer/engineer of Royals’ radio broadcasts, also did not make the cut, team officials said.
Oof. Those are some tough exclusions, especially since all of those guys contributed to that great Royals team in some way. Moore emphasized that the team strives for inclusiveness (they did buy approximately 700 World Series rings for their organization, after all), but due to the restrictions on the guest list, they just weren’t able to invite everyone.
Gomes’ patriotism is no joke, which is why this development is so disappointing to him. Gomes was going to join the Marines had the Tampa Bay Rays (then Devil Rays) not drafted him in 2001, and his entire left calf is tattooed in tribute to the U.S. Military. Rosenthal listed Gomes’ tattoos:
The images include the Statue of Liberty, World War II aircraft, and military dog tags, plus an army helmet, bald eagle and No. 40 for the late Pat Tillman, who left the NFL to enlist in the Army and lost his life in Afghanistan.
Gomes has been to the White House before. He went in 2014 with members of the 2013 world champion Boston Red Sox, and wore a memorable stars and stripes blazer.
Even though he won’t be wearing it to the White House, hopefully Gomes can find other occasions to wear that blazer. Independence Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day come to mind. And of course, he should be wearing it on June 14, which is Flag Day.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
