|
Written by Jimmy Scott
|
|
Tuesday, 26 August 2008 |
 It’s always hard to say goodbye. Some of us are traded. Others are
waived. Some are demoted while others outright released. The
newspaper calls these moves “Transactions.” I call them possibly the
worst time in a person’s life. In the real world, there are layoffs. Restructuring. Baseball teams
never downsize, at least not on the field. Look at a 25-man roster on
opening day. Then look at it at the All-Star break. On October 1,
glance one last time. The one consistency?
Movement. Players will always come and go, but the team will remain the same, at least in name. (Quick Trivia: What’s the oldest MLB franchise still in its original city? Answer somewhere later in the article, but not necessarily at the bottom.)
From a player’s point of view? Being released is obviously the worst. Imagine going home and telling your wife, who very well may have married you because you could throw a ball harder than any of her other suitors, “Uh, hon, the team let me go today.” Not only is it embarrassing, but it squashes an ego, which, for professional athletes, can be a major death blow. What makes us able to hit or pitch or catch fly balls coming at us out of the bright night lights in front of a live crowd of 55,000 people and one that’s televised in front of anywhere from 100,000 to 55 million? Our egos, man. You know that. Ballplayers aren’t just babies. We’re egotistical ones.
Then hang out with one who’s just been released. Not fun. Even worse? Imagine being married to one of these guys. Want to know why something like 90% of marriages terminate after a professional sports career ends? The end of an ego.
(Trivia Answer: The Philadelphia Phillies are the oldest team with no name change or change of city, playing since 1883.)
On the pecking order, a player would rather be demoted than released. But a demotion is exactly that. It means you couldn’t hack it. You didn’t have the ability, or the mindset, or that one intangible a prickly manager wants his guys to have that you could never figure out no matter how hard you tried. The ramifications of a demotion are horrid. Climbing back is not easy. Not by any means. You’re labeled. I don’t care if you’re a veteran signing a minor league deal or a rookie with an on base percentage of .287. You had your chance and you blew it. Quite possible, your career could be dead forever at this point (are you listening, Melky Cabrera?). The only way out is working harder than you ever did in your life, pestering the hell out of your agent, who’s not exactly taking your calls right now, and shutting your mouth.
A trade. I’ll talk more about being traded in the future. But while you read about guys who say, “It was nice to know somebody wanted me,” to me we’re all George Costanzas. Yeah, somebody wants you. But the worst part is somebody doesn’t want you. Why? What’s wrong with me? Am I going bald? Do I look too old? Did I say the wrong thing?
Remember, ballclubs are just like any other organization in the world. There are politics. There is ass-kissing. Unless you’re Manny Ramirez or Roger Clemens (from the Pre-Allegation Era), the kind of player who can virtually dictate which molecule of oxygen he’ll intake with his next breath, you have to watch your back. Piss off the wrong guy in the front office and watch out. You might be on the next train out (old cliché; we fly everywhere now). You might think, “Oh, it’s just baseball.” But it’s much more than that. It’s the best game in the world, but behind the scenes are some of the worst kinds of people you’ll ever meet.
But that’s also for another day.
Being waived sucks. I wrote last week about what it’s like to be waived. More secrets. Again, front office guys (very few gals) love the power of secrets. The players make the money. The agents make the deals. But the GMs and Assistant GMs and everyone above and below make and keep the secrets. They love the power. Until they leak those secrets. Another power play (speaking of which, I’m sure the same story unwinds in the NHL). The players are caught somewhere inside. “What’s up?” you can ask. “Don’t know,” they’ll respond. Go home and tell the wife or girlfriend that. “Um, I may not be here tomorrow. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Can you ask them?” she’ll ask.
“No,” he’ll say. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“What about your agent?”
“He hasn’t called me back.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” she’ll say. “I work for a living too. They can’t just send me to Milwaukee or Kansas City or Seattle tomorrow for the rest of my career.”
She’ll be right, and so will he. Baseball isn’t the real world. It’s a living fantasy league where Transactions rule and players go to sleep with their contracts under their pillows, praying they have a team to come home to after the next road trip, and a home to come home to as well.
Don’t always wish for our lives. You may not like what you see.
|
|
|
