Fed up with LSU coach Paul Mainieri’s totalitarian regime, Tiger freshman second baseman Kramer Robertson left the team Monday, announcing he was going on an indefinite strike.
Standing outside Championship Plaza at Alex Box Stadium, Robertson held a homemade sign and chanted his motto to anyone who would listen.
“Hey, no baseball, no baseball, no baseball, no baseball,” Robertson yelled.
Robertson said he petitioned Mainieri for a few days off in early April to celebrate Feasternal, an otherwise unknown holiday that his uncle — Cosmo Kramer — created and the extended Robertson family has celebrated for years.
The holiday, traditionally celebrated two days before Easter Sunday, involves a large family dinner, a gathering around a wooden egg and Robertson family matriarch and Baylor women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey giving an icy glare to all who question the validity of the celebration.
“I’m allergic to chocolate and egg yolks,” Cosmo Kramer said. “And I find the combination of yellow and pink distracting. It’s a day we all gather and remember the ways we’ve been let down in the new year.”
Robertson kept the wooden egg in his locker all season, but after the Vanderbilt series, it mysteriously disappeared. Robertson still doesn’t know who pilfered the egg, but he suspects Mainieri or senior third baseman Christian Ibarra committed the crime.
“Ibarra’s got that Spanish swag and I know he played with eggs growing up,” Robertson said. “I bet he’s got it. He and [senior outfielder] Sean [McMullen] worked together.”
In lieu of playing second base for the Tigers, sources told The Daily Reveille that Robertson will team with his uncle to re-start a reality bus tour Cosmo originally launched several years ago.
The “Golden Sombrero Giddy Up Tour” will replace the J. Peterman Reality Bus Tour, a failed venture Cosmo started in the mid-’90s.
The original tour on a cramped school bus featured stops at local repositories and celebrity homes. Robertson said his uncle’s first venture was a valiant effort, but he plans to change the setting of the tour.
“We’re going to Texas,” Robertson said. “God’s country. My mom’s friend Bob Sacamano is donating a charter bus.”
With his second baseman gone, Mainieri said he’ll hodgepodge the position in Wednesday’s midweek game against McNeese State. Junior Conner Hale could see time and Mainieri hinted that sophomore shortstop Alex Bregman could move to second.
Bregman was not available for comment.
“If I’ve learned anything in 33 years of coaching, it’s that these kids aren’t robots,” Mainieri said. “[Robertson] wanted to express himself and I think that’s great. I may bring my grandson Holden to see the egg, if he can ever find it!”