Bobby Abreu is not a swinger

New York baseball fans will soon learn what has become painfully obvious to the long-suffering baseball fans of Philadelphia: Brand-new Yankee and slugger-with-a-.430-slugging-percentage Bobby Abreu likes to take a pitch.

He takes a lot of pitches, leading the majors in walks this year despite hitting in front of the National League's top power hitter and behind its hit leader.

What makes Abreu unique, when compared to other patient middle-of-the-line-up hitters such as Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, is when Abreu spots a ball coming towards the middle of his strike-zone he doesn't pounce on it and try to drive it out of the park. Rather he takes it in hopes the next pitch will be a ball, bringing him closer to drawing another of his cherished walks.

So steady is he in this approach he refuses to let having two strikes alter it.

I learned something today about Abreu that gets to the stunning depths of his passive nature. Abreu was once engaged to 1996's Miss Universe, who hails from his native Venezuela. The engagement was called off last year when his beauty queen fiancee was cast in a Mexican reality television show and promptly had sex with a greasy, pony-tailed man not named Bobby Abreu in front of a large TV audience.

While some have pointed out Abreu did go on a bit of power surge right after it happened, it was brief and he quickly returned to being the pitch taking machine he's always been.

Getting on with your life is probably a good idea after being the victim of such an egregious infidelity. But video of the illicit copulation now lives in internet infamy.

This clip* alone has been viewed a couple hundred thousand times since February. It is one of many.

One might think this never-ending humiliation would drive Abreu to take his aggression out on that little white ball, often thrown in his direction without the deceptive curve or blistering pace the other major leaguers are forced to grapple with.

But no.

Yankee fans who assume a move to pinstripes will impart in Abreu a hostility towards the ball, when the booing fans of Philadelphia and his then-fiancee riding some guy all over the internet weren't able to, are fooling themselves.

Just remember, "A walk is as good as a hit."

If you keep repeating this mantra, like Bobby does, you too can believe it is true.

*The clip contains PG-13, soap opera-like, sheet obscured sex. Only it's real sex and it involves Bobby Abreu's ex-fiancee, a former Miss Universe.