On Gordon Beckham, and half-measures

I used to be a beat cop a long time ago, and I'd get called out on domestic disputes all the time, hundreds probably, over the years. But there was this one piece of shit that I remember, Gordie, looked like Bo Svensen, remember him?  Walking Tall?  You don't remember him? No?  Anyway, big boy-- 270-280.  But his wife... whatever-she-was lady... she was small.  Like a bird.  Brisk like little branches.  Anyway, my partner and I would get called out there every weekend, and one of us would pull her aside and say 'Come on, tonight's the night we press charges."  And this wasn't one of those 'deep down, he really loves me' setups, she was scared; she wasn't going to cross him, no way no how.  Nothing we could do but pass her off to the EMT's, put him in the car, drive him downtown, throw him in the drunk tank, he sleeps it off; next morning, out he goes, back home.

But one night, my partner's out sick; just me. Call comes in and it's the usual crap: broke her nose in the shower kind of thing.  So I cuff him, I put him in the car and away we go.  Only that night, we're driving in to town, and this sideways asshole is in my car in the backseat, humming "Danny Boy".  Hurmph.  Yeah, and it just rubbed me wrong.  So instead of left, I go right in to nowhere.  And I kneel him down, and I put my revolver in his mouth and I said "This is it.  This is how it ends."  And he's cryin', going to the bathroom all over himself, swearing to God he's gonna leave her alone, and he's screaming-- as much you can with a gun in your mouth.

I told him to be quiet, I had to think of what I was going to do here-- and of course he got quiet.  Goes still.  And real quiet.  Like a dog waiting for dinner scraps.  We just stood there for a while.  Me, acting like I'm thinking things over, and Prince Charming sitting there in the dirt with shit in his pants.

After a few minutes, I took the gun out of his mouth.  And I said "So help me, if you ever touch her again I will" such and such and such and such and blah blah blah blah blah.

[Just a warning?]

Of course.  Just trying to do the right thing.

Two weeks later, he killed her.  Of course.  Caved her head in with the base of a wearing blender.  We got there... there was so much blood, you could taste the metal.

Moral of the story is: I chose a half-measure, when I should have gone all the way.  I'll never make that mistake again.

No more half-measures, Walter.  

If you've not watched every second of Breaking Bad, you're seriously missing out, and should stop whatever you're doing right now in order to remedy that, but I'm sure you've already been told by dozens of people.  The above quote is from this scene, and this isn't a spoiler at all-- just one of the more epic lines of the entire series, delivered by arguably the best character of arguably the best show ever.

Gregor Chisolm and Scott Merkin of MLB.com are reporting that the Jays are interested in Gordon Beckham, for some reason.  Beckham isn't really an upgrade over what we've got already, whether it's Maicer Izturis or Ryan Goins or Munenori Kawasaki or Mark Derosa.

I mean, he's probably slightly better than any of those guys-- I'm not entirely convinced that Izturis is actually as bad as we saw last year, but that's probably a different post for a different day-- but "slightly better" isn't anything to be overly thrilled about.  Goins probably stinks equally offensively in the future, regardless of how good he is defensively, but as of right now, he is probably the best choice to start 2014 as the main 2B of those currently in the organization.

There are plenty of guys in the league who can put up value somewhere in the area of what Beckham can do, and like three of them are already Blue Jays.  Beckham will make about $3.5MM through arbitration-- Izturis, Goins, Kawasaki and DeRosa combined will make slightly more than that.  Take in to account that the Jays would probably have to give something up to acquire Beckham, and yeah, this doesn't make any sense.

If Beckham is an upgrade over whatever's kicking around the organization-- if!-- he certainly isn't a big one, and is therefore not a respectable allocation of assets.  Gordon Beckham would be a half-measure.  No more half-measures, Walter.