Hall of Famer makes bizarre admission

Philadelphia Phillies Hall of Fame third basemen Mike Schmidt probably knows his way around an athletic cup, right?

In the third inning of Philadelphia’s blowout loss to the Oakland Athletics Sunday afternoon, Phillies backup catcher Garrett Stubbs took a foul ball to the groin region. It was the second time over the weekend that Stubbs endured a hit to the area. And on the first occasion, Phillies analyst John Kruk pondered why an athletic cup has its name. Naturally, Kruk’s mind began racing after seeing Stubbs get hit again.

“That’s painful for everyone,” Kruk said as he watched Stubbs shake it off by walking around home plate. “We were discussing, how did they come up with the name ‘cup’?”

“Well, you can drink out of it,” Schmidt joked without much hesitation.

At least, we hope it was a joke.

As if watching Stubbs take a baseball to the groin in slow motion wasn’t gut-wrenching enough, Schmidt had to level up the moment by nauseating the audience with the thought of drinking from an athletic up. Maybe Schmidt eats off home plate too.

The suggestion prompted play-by-play voice Tom McCarthy to make note of the athletic cup’s ventilation holes. Surely, holes are the main reason to avoid using an athletic cup as a drinking vessel.

But Kruk wasn’t satisfied with the explanation, and he continued to seek answers while seeming more baffled by the name “cup” than he did by Schmidt’s suggestion of drinking from it. It seems simple enough. It’s called a cup because it cups. And anyone who has worn one probably just accepted that as the answer, until John Kruk had to go question it in front of Mike Schmidt.

[ NBC Sports Philadelphia ]

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