Finally, someone is talking a bit about Ryan Doumit's benching. Today, his agent denied that Doumit's benching was pouting-related, denied that Doumit's been dogging it since the trade deadline, and said that Doumit loves Pittsburgh and John Russell. DK has also confirmed from a couple sources that Doumit's benching came because he slammed his helmet down off the ground, only to have it rebound in Luis Cruz's face. That apparently pushed existing tension between the coaching staff and Doumit over the edge.

Now, I know that Doumit's agent isn't the most objective source on this sort of thing, but I'm happy to have any sort of closure at all on this. I'm sure Doumit is frustrated with the trades and the team's play, but hopefully everyone can put this behind them now that the laundry has unfortunately been aired in public. I'll give Doumit the benefit of the doubt and continue to believe that his power-sapping wrist injury is why he's been so terrible since his return and hope that he'll come back stronger next year.

Also, I know this is mean to say, but I kind of wish there was a YouTube of Doumit slamming the helmet off the ground and having it bounce back up and hit Cruz. At this point, the Pirates would be much more entertaining if they tried harder to resemble the Three Stooges.