Gotta be the shoes

Danny Valencia and Billy Butler in
presumably friendlier times.

You may have heard about this already: Danny Valencia, former Twin, and Oakland teammate Billy Butler got into a fight in the clubhouse last week. Butler got the worst of it; he missed two games over the weekend and now has gone on the concussion disabled list.

As reported by Susan Slusser in the San Francisco Chronicle, the altercation originated when a representative of an equipment maker asked Valencia about a pair of off-brand spikes in his locker. Valencia assured the rep that he doesn't wear those in games, whereupon Butler interjected himself into the conversation to say that Valencia was lying and Company X should drop his endorsement deal.

There are three things here, at least one of which is probably no surprise:

• Danny Valencia is willing to lie to get or keep an endorsement deal worth several thousand dollars.
• Billy Butler is willing to go out of his way to get in the way of that deal.
• Somebody thinks Danny Valencia's choice of game spikes is worth several thousand dollars to the maker of those spikes.

.The third is the one that puzzles me.