Jazz Chisholm Jr. is in the cross hairs of his manager and social media once again. After several incidents of petulant, childish behavior over the years, he is once again being called out. What was it this time? Challenging his manager? Nope. Not running hard to first? Nuh uh. Kicking a subterranean infield camera? No. That was yesterday. Charging the mound? Not even close. The infraction was a…brace yourself…you should be sitting down…a…

Lollipop.

…on the field. Okay, the lollipop was not actually on the field. That would be weird if he just took a sour apple sucker from Sanders Confectionary and threw it on the ground. First, Sanders is a local piece of Detroit history and throwing one of their offerings on the ground would just be rude and would make him a bad guest.

No, the lollipop was somewhere else…somewhere you would never expect. It’s so shocking, I am not sure I can or should write the words. But, I must. The lollipop was.

…in his mouth.

“What?!?” The podcast hosts are rightfully screaming, “His mouth? He actually had a lollipop in his mouth?”

And then the real look of horror flashes across their faces, “…during a…game?”

“I’m afraid so,” I must reply. between the Yankees and the Tigers and it was a game the Yankees lost.

“Well, no wonder!” they’re screaming. “How could a grown man be possibly expected to concentrate on the game of baseball with a lolly sticking out of his face? It’s irresponsible! It’s dangerous! He can’t do that! It’s…it’s…unseeeeemly.”

“Oh, yeah. That pisses me off,” said Yankee Manager Aaron Boone during a podcast with Talking Yanks and Jomboy Media. “He and I talked about that. That won’t be going on.”

Good. We can’t have lollipops on the field. Baseball has always been known as the dental-care sport. That’s why players have always been given copious amounts of chewing tobacco so that plaque doesn’t build up on players’ teeth during a game. That’s one reason why DJ LeMahieu always had a dip in under Boone’s watch.

You see, that’s smart.

“That was the second time?” Boone asked, incredulous.

In fact, it was. Chisholm Jr. first brought this uncouth habit to the field earlier this year -during a visit to a very cold Fenway Park. It just goes to show how ridiculous he’s being. Everyone knows that Dum Dums lower the body’s temperature by six-to-ten degrees. That’s science.

Also, the sucker caused a two-base error as a sticky-mouthed Chisholm Jr. could only make a, “Crgltrp” sound to center fielder Aaron Judge while Boston’s Willson Contreras was stretching a single into a triple. That’s proof that suckers prevent winning.

Another player tried a stunt like this once. In 1968, a no-talent kid named Reginald Martinez Jackson began eating sunflower seeds during games while with the Oakland Athletics. Catfish Hunter slipped on the seeds in the dugout and broke his pelvis. Jackson was quickly identified as the culprit, was removed from the game personally by owner Charley Finley, and then released from the team. Finley used Jackson for the cost of Hunter’s surgeries and for the cost of janitorial services. No other team would have anything to do with him -especially the Yankees. Last anyone heard, he had finally paid off his debts as of 1987 and has been driving a David Sunflowers Truck in Poughkeepsie, NY ever since.

“I didn’t know about it until after the game,” Boone said, referring to the most recent indiscretion.

His father, Bob Boone, was also opposed to any foreign objects in a player’s mouth. U L Washington of the Kansas City Royals tried chewing on a toothpick during a spring training game once against the Philadelphia Phillies in 1983. Boone called for a beanball from rookie Kevin Gross. A confused Gross shook off the sign. Boone called time and went out to the mound. There, he informed Gross about Washington’s violation of at least seven unwritten baseball rules. Enraged, Gross drilled Washington in the neck before Boone could even make it back to home plate. Washington also never played again, and certainly never hit .300 in the 1980 postseason.

Simply put, the fact that Chisholm Jr. is still allowed to play the game is an outrage. But, since Obama, Major League Baseball has turned a blind eye to such behavior, unlike the way it and the player’s union handled steroids and performance-enhancing drugs from the 1980s to 2008.

With concerted effort, protests, letter-writing campaigns, and boycotts of games, perhaps, we might be able to change Major League Baseball’s lax attitude toward this scourge I have come to call, “Blow Popapalooza,” but I doubt it will.

This leaves our nation weaker and truly makes suckers…of us all.