"Mike Lowell regularly used to slam his batting helmet to the ground on close calls at first base.

Josh Beckett fired his glove off the dugout wall plenty of times.

Kevin Brown and Alex Fernandez did their share of bat-wielding damage to the clubhouse televisions.

I mean, come on, it's not like this Marlins franchise has been populated by Boy Scouts these past two decades.

It's not like angry baseball "snaps" haven't been part of the equation during those two championship runs.

"Ultracompetitiveness," Marlins baseball czar Larry Beinfest calls it.

It's the same sort of thing that makes Brandon Marshall fire a football at the sidelines or sets off Ed Jovanovski until he's barking two inches from an opponent's face.

"I'm not condoning that in any way," Beinfest said Thursday, "but it does happen in the game and it happens with some very good players that are just demonstrative with their competitiveness."

Now along comes Carlos Zambrano, accompanied by a thick wad of Cubs cash, and everybody wants to act like, "There goes the neighborhood.""