HEARTBREAKING: A timeline of Dustin Garneau’s hopeless handshakes

 

DENVER – 2017 has been a hard year for Dustin Garneau. Not behind the plate or at it but rather walking up to the mound in celebration. His defense has improved, so too has his hitting but one thing hasn’t. Dustin Garneau forgot how to dap, and there is evidence.

Chapter One: Tony

First, we have to make sure this isn’t a Greg Holland issue, as the Colorado Rockies do have a new closer, which means Garneau has a new handshake mate. For this, we look at the Rockies other catcher, Tony Wolters.

A nice clean fist bump from Tony and Greg. Nothing wrong with this, in fact, it’s an 80-grade fist bump. It’s not the only greeting the goofy Wolters has for a win either.

Look at this, look how clean this is. Tony and Greg are so much on the same page that they’re two-hand dapping. We caught up with Tony to see what was working for him and to see if he could explain what’s going wrong for Dustin.

(Seriously, this is real.)

Chapter Two: FBG

“I usually look to see if the hand is open or closed first,” Wolters explained. “G (Garneau) and I usually do the fist bump and I think G (Garneau) is more of a fist-bump guy. It’s their (Holland and Garneau’s) key, they’re known for it (the miscues) now. But it just depends on what you’re feeling.”

Establishing that Garneau is a FBG (‘fist-bump guy’) is huge here. But it makes us ask the question why is Holland bumping Wolters but ‘fiving’ Garneau?

Chapter Three: Is Garneau Set In His Ways? A History Of Dustin Daps

August 30, 2015, Dustin has not always been a FBG (‘fist-bump guy’). The first photo of him in the big leagues that we have rights to use shows the catcher mid-fiving then Rockies closer John Axford. Maybe Garneau was feeling some rookie fright and followed the veteran, Axford?

September 2015, Dustin is now seeing time as a September call-up, he knows a poor celebration with a veteran won’t cost him a roster spot. He goes for it. He goes for the Garneau Greeting, a bump.

Early May 2016, Dustin is working with a new closer for the second straight season, he shies away from the dap. He goes for a crisp high five with Jake McGee. It goes well.

Late May 2016, Dustin and Jake are on the same page. Same situation as the season before, he broke his closer in with high fives until they knew he was a FBG.

Chapter Four: Everything Goes Wrong For Our Tragic Hero

January 28, 2017, the Rockies sign Holland. Little does Garneau know, but this All-Star closer that may propel the club to the postseason is about to make him look forever uncool.

April, 2017, First save and wow this as bad as it gets.

A couple days later, and Garneau ain’t backing down, he’s a FBG and he’s now a confident big leaguer, no more just a rookie. The third closer in three years, he was done adapting after two.

At this point, you may be thinking Greg is pulling a fast one on his backstop, but if you rewind a day we find that Garneau is once more having issues with McGee. This is bad. Like, on a bunch of levels. Seeing that McGee throws left and Garneau right each has their non-glove hand on the same side of their body, making for a real easy handshake. They messed it up.

Same day and… uh, what are you doing Dustin? Everyone knows that when you do the crazy forearm bump thing that baseball players do after home runs you’re supposed to close your fist. Tyler Anderson knows. As a FBG you should be super keen on this. We’ll let this slide because he is jumping up and down and maybe the force of his jump made his hand open.

A few days pass and now even the photographers know to get nowhere near this whole Garneau ordeal.

Same road trip, Dustin is right back where we started. He’s a FBG, we know this. Hello, Greg? Figure it out please, save Dustin from this misery, we already know you’re not opposed to fist bumps so why do you keep making our boy Dustin look bad?

Chapter Five: Conclusion

Dustin is a fist bump guy, but first and foremost he’s a good guy. He high fives the new closers until they’re comfortable then he goes to his patented fist bump. This year he was sick of that and figured Holland should get in on the Garneau Greeting. As for this miscommunication in celebration, maybe that’s their thing and effected his overall celebration game, we don’t know it, we may never know, but that level of investigation is above my pay-grade.