For a good three or four days, a reliever was the most talked-about name in baseball. I'm not sure you can even say that about a three-to-four day stretch in the careers of all-time greats like Mariano Rivera or Trevor Hoffman.
But they didn't intentionally throw at guys who had a history of cheating, and they sure played with a lot of them. They didn't fire pitches toward the heads of known steroid users, and that's exactly what Kelly did to known sign-stealers.
And they certainly didn't do this.
Much of the baseball community took exception to Kelly's pitching against the Astros, viewing it as dangerous and unacceptable behavior. But he became a cult hero for the Dodgers faithful, Astros haters and more baseball fans. Even sportswriters commended Kelly's actions, such as Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times, who thanked him for "banging hard on the trash can that is the Houston Astros."
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In fact, Kelly joined what I imagine to be a small group of relief pitchers in MLB history, including Rivera, to have a mural painted in his honor. L.A.-based artist Jonas Never made an extremely accurate mural depicting Kelly's now-famous pouting face that he made toward Carlos Correa on the side of a barbershop in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Completed on September 8, Never's mural had a notable visitor just days after it was finished.
Kelly was activated from the 10-day injured list on Thursday night -- it wasn't from cooking Cajun food this time -- though he will still have to serve five games of his suspension until he can return to action. That unfortunately means that he'll miss the Dodgers' upcoming weekend home stand, which is against -- who else -- the Houston Astros.
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