Playing hurt

You might want to read this before you watch today's playoff games...

Robert B. Parker wrote a series of books about a private detective named Spenser and in one of the books someone calls Spenser cynical and Spenser replies that he’s just well-informed.

And the two do seem to be related.

Major League Baseball makes sure we know exactly how much their best-paid players make (you can go on Baseball Reference and look up any player’s contract, but the owners hide what they make like Dorian Gray hid his portrait) so you might assume – which I did – that if the best-paid Big League players make millions, that guys in the minors must make hundreds of thousands, but the first time I got to spend time around a minor-league team I realized just how wrong I was.

The outfield walls weren’t padded, the showers didn’t work, the postgame meal might be a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter, four players were jammed into one apartment and none of them could afford a car so they all had to walk wherever they were going which was less of a problem than you might think because they couldn’t afford to go anywhere.

According to the Associated Press, in 2022 the average Major League salary was $4.41 million, which sounds pretty good. But remember; if I make $10 million and you make nothing, our “average” salary is $5 million and people might assume you’re a millionaire even though you live in a cardboard box.

MLB makes sure we know about Big League salaries, but are not so vocal about what minor leaguers make and according to the following article, minor league salaries range from$4,800 to $14,000 a year (which looks like a typo, but isn’t) and you’d make more if you had a minimum-wage job flipping burgers:

https://en.as.com/mlb/how-much-money-do-minor-league-baseball-players-earn-n/

Since my first trip to the minors I’ve been skeptical about professional sports teams and their tendency to behave one way when the spotlight is on them and another way when they think no one is looking.

Which gets us to Damar Hamlin.

After Hamlin collapsed during the Bills-Bengals game I said the NFL only pretended to care about player safety (unless the player in question is a star quarterback because those guys sell tickets) and some football fans got upset and pointed out that the NFL had an ambulance there and took Hamlin to the hospital and cancelled the game.

(Although…if you believe TV announcer Joe Buck instead of the NFL, the NFL didn’t want to cancel the game and told the players they had to warm up and resume play, which, last I heard the NFL denies.)

I also said the NFL’s concern for player safety seemed to increase after they got sued by former players with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE from here on in so I don’t have to keep writing “chronic traumatic encephalopathy”) and if you want a demonstration of just how little they used to care about player safety, here’s a clip of ESPN’s Jacked Up! a video feature that celebrated violent hits:

If you paid attention to who was on the Jacked Up! panel, you saw some of the same people who acted so concerned after the Hamlin incident, but this time they were laughing and yelling “JACKED UP!” when a player got knocked unconscious so forgive me (or don’t) if I think they’re fucking hypocrites.

According to the internet, this video is from 2004 and the first CTE lawsuits were filed in 2011 and according to the lawsuits, the NFL was concealing the damage getting hit in the head repeatedly was doing to their players.

But that was then and this is now and maybe the NFL has learned its lesson because they settled those lawsuits for a billion dollars, which sounds pretty generous.

Until…

You find out they were using “race-norming” which sounds like something the Nazis would think of…and is.

“Race-norming” is a statistical manipulation that assumes Black players started out with worse cognitive functioning that White players. And since the majority of NFL players are Black, “race-norming” made it harder for Black players to get money from that Billion Dollar Settlement and according to the following article more than two-thirds of the 3,000 claims were denied:

https://theconversation.com/nfl-concussion-lawsuit-payouts-reveal-how-racial-bias-in-science-continues-145987

So the NFL makes what sounds like a generous settlement which makes headlines, and puts slogans like END RACISM on the back of players’ helmets, but then fights the claims players file and when people found out about “race-norming” they had to go back and renegotiate the settlement and offer to let Black players get re-tested and this time Dr. Mengele wouldn’t be evaluating the test. But even with that concession – according to the Associated Press – as of March of 2022, only 3-out-of-10 claims have been paid.

So as Steve Martin would say:

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeexcuse me if I’m not convinced the NFL has learned its lesson and now cares about player safety.

It seems to me that they care about their public image and might be forced to do the right thing when the spotlight is on them – like when Damar Hamlin collapsed – but how do they behave when nobody is watching?

Great medical care that you better not use

When I covered the Kansas City Royals on more than one occasion I heard a veteran ballplayer warn a rookie to stay out of the training room because the trainers were team employees and would report every little injury to the team, which sounds like a good thing.

Here’s why it’s not.

The following article is from Bleacher Report and it’s written by Marc Lillibridge, a former NFL player:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1303698-injured-or-hurt-a-former-players-perspective-on-nfl-injuries

Just in case you didn’t read it, here’s the CliffsNotes version: players who seek medical treatment might get the “injury-prone” label and they want to avoid that like the latest COVID variation because pro sports teams don’t like paying players who aren’t on the field playing or refuse to “play hurt.”

Pro teams like guys who will “play through pain” even though pain is a pretty good indicator that you really oughta stop doing the shit you’re doing.

Now here’s a quote from the Lillibridge story:

“Players that miss time with pulls, like a groin or hamstring, are called “babies, sissies and soft” behind their backs. Unless the injury is visible or diagnosable, like a compound fracture or torn ACL, everyone in the organization will question the player’s toughness at some level.”

Here’s another:

“Being labeled “injury-prone” is the scarlet letter in the NFL—even if the injuries were freak accidents.  Club executives avoid players with that label like the plague and once a player gets that moniker, they wear the title for life.”

Let’s go back to where we started

We haven’t touched on salaries that aren’t guaranteed or long-term medical care for players who beat the crap out of their bodies to entertain the rest of us and make team owners even richer and a dozen other issues I’m not informed enough to talk about.

But knowing what I know (and now you know some of it too) it’s hard to take it seriously when the NFL acts concerned about Damar Hamlin’s health and has moments of silence for an injured player when you know they don’t mind fucking those players over when we’re not paying attention.

And if this article affects your thinking remember: You’re not cynical, you’re just better informed.

Now enjoy today’s playoff games.