Do not be alarmed. That picture, by all accounts, is real. On some distant planet many, many years ago, Brad Wilkerson did, in fact, receive a curtain call. He played for some team called the "Expos." No, I don't know who the hell they are, either.
It's over, my friends. The Brad Wilkerson era in Toronto, which began on May 9, 2008, has mercifully come to an end nine agonizing months later.
Wilkerson, a free agent, is off to play terrible baseball for the Boston Red Sox, the fourth team he will inevitably let down in the last five years.
His signing, worth a base salary of $400,000, but with the potential to go as high as $2.5 million, proves that baseball actually is immune to the ills of the global financial crisis. If Wilkerson can parlay his dry-heaves inducing 2008 statistics - a .220 batting average, .308 on-base percentage, and .634 OPS - into a job during these trying economic times, well, Major League Baseball is doing just fine, thank you very much.
You know, I don't know much in life, but I am certain about one thing: my unborn son is so playing baseball.
As he packs his bags for New England, I wish Wilkerson nothing but the best. I look forward to never seeing him in a Toronto Blue Jays uniform again.
