Ellsbury shills for Taco Bell

Taco Bell promotion is off base to someJacoby Ellsbury did the deed in the fourth inning Thursday night. And not long afterward, Fox Sports played this conversation, recorded a day earlier from the Red Sox dugout, between Ellsbury and shortstop Royce Clayton:

Clayton: Hey, you like Taco Bell?

Ellsbury: (nods)

Clayton: You know, if somebody steals a base in the World Series, everybody in America gets a Taco Bell free . . . taco.

Ellsbury: Everybody in America?

Clayton: Everybody in America gets a free taco.

Could you repeat that one more time? Soon, conspiracy theories were swirling--especially since Clayton had also been caught talking up the tacos with center fielder Coco Crisp. ("You could go to every Taco Bell in the world and say that 'I ain't got my taco!' " he had said. "How they gonna know?") Announcers Tim McCarver and Joe Buck seemed to chat up Taco Bell at every opportunity. And on Thursday, Fox Sports announcer Chris Myers conducted a fawning interview with Taco Bell honcho Rob Savage, who said, with an impressively straight face, that this giveaway was "for our customers."Comment:  There's absolutely no truth to the rumor that Ellsbury is thinking of changing his name from Jacoby to Tacoby.

As the article says, this promotion is pretty venal. I didn't know things had gotten this bad (see the accompanying video). I guess it's all part of today's baseball, but it's far from traditional Native values.