The Professional Athlete
Winning is nice, but the real goal is making money…
Like a lot of you I grew up watching and loving sports movies which may be the number one source of misinformation about professional sports, although postgame press conferences and naïve media stories run a close second.
Now here’s the internet definition of a professional athlete: “A professional athlete is one who competes in a sporting activity for the purpose of earning money. He is expected to put up a quality performance every time he enters the field.”
Right about here is a good time to call bullshit.
There are times pro athletes play hard and times they coast, which is not a negative comment because there are definitely times pro athletes should coast and we’re going to talk a lot more about that in a minute.
But first…
I started thinking about all this after a conversation with one of my sons who’s a huge NBA fan and he made the comment that he loved the playoffs because it was the one time all year the only thing that mattered was winning.
And if you’re thinking, “Aren’t they always trying to win?” as usual, the answer is some version of: “It depends.”
For instance, some NBA players are reluctant to try one of those half-court shots right before halftime because they’re probably going to miss it and that missed shot will hurt their shooting percentage.
And if that seems selfish and short-sighted, hang on; you’ve got a lot more disheartening information headed your way.
Time for Team Baseball
In 2013 the Kansas City Royals were about to put up their first winning record in a long time and in the last month of the season a Royals coach told me the players didn’t realize just how good they were and they had a shot at the postseason and it was now time for them to start playing “team baseball.”
I said I thought Big League players played team baseball until their team was eliminated from the postseason and then did what they could to improve their personal stats.
The coach looked at me like I had just announced I still believed in Santa Claus and his co-workers the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy and then told me it was just the opposite: Big League ballplayers try to build up their personal stats all season long because that’s what keeps them employed, but if they realize their team has a chance at the postseason are then expected to sacrifice their individual numbers in an effort to win.
For instance:
Say you’ve got a runner on second base with nobody out in the later innings of a one-run game.
If you want to win, in most cases the right thing to do is hit a ground ball to the right side which will allow the runner to advance to third base and then the next guy can drive in the run without getting a hit (a fly ball to the outfield or a groundball with the infield back will work). And if you hit that groundball to the right side you’ll be greeted in the dugout with hugs and high fives, but a 4-3 groundout to move a runner 90 feet does absolutely nothing for you when it comes to stats.
Then at the end of the year some front office guy will be happy to stick it to you at contract time because you didn’t hit enough home runs.
Guys with long-term contracts might be able to give away at-bats for the good of the team; guys hanging on by the skin of their teeth need all the good numbers they can generate, but nobody’s going to say that out loud because it sounds bad and then you’d have to admit you play sports for the money. So instead, players regurgitate a bunch of clichés about playing winning baseball, but if you want to stay in the Big Leagues you need to put up numbers.
That’s what baseball values and rewards and you can’t blame players for accepting that reality.
Coaching third
A friend went from coaching first base to coaching third base and I asked a Big League player if it was a lot more responsibility (it is, but first base coaches still do way more than we think) and the Big League player said coaching third was a lot more responsibility and then added:
“And they don’t like it when you get those million dollar players blown up at the plate.”
This was before MLB decided to get rid of exciting plays that might include contact (collisions at home, taking out the pivot man on a double play) because a star player might get hurt and cost a ball club money because those star players sell tickets.
So the third base coach has to consider salary before waving a runner home?
Maybe.
The World Series might be different, but you don’t want a star player getting hurt during a meaningless play in a meaningless game. But if the player isn’t a star maybe you send him home.
Scott Cousins was the guy who broke Buster Posey’s leg and over the course of four seasons, Cousins played in a total of 135 games and had 193 plate appearances. If he was in the same situation, would Ryan Braun (the 2011 MVP) try to run over Posey and if Ryan was playing for the Marlins and since the Marlins finished in last place, would you really want him to try?
Go 80 percent
College ballplayers play around 50 regular season games and then – if they’re good and lucky enough – sign a pro contract and play 132 games in High A or Single A and at some point (if they’re honest) will admit they’re exhausted.
They’ve never played that much baseball in their lives and now throw in travel and shitty sleep and finding out just how much partying you can do on a minor league salary and guys are walking around like zombies.
The smart zombies will ask a coach how to get through it.
And if the smart zombie asked smart coach Rusty Kuntz, Rusty would tell them to go everywhere at 80% (maybe Rusty said 75% and I can’t remember for sure because these days I’m not 100%). But the point is and was you don’t give 100% or the mathematically improbable 110% on every play. You can’t afford to.
Put it on cruise control and then when you need to go 100%, adrenaline will kick in and get you there.
Nobody wants a player pulling a hamstring while trying to beat out an infield single in a game you’re losing by 10 runs.
If He Was A Prospect
Teams draft players and the players drafted in the first round are considered “prospects” (the team thinks the player has a shot at the Big Leagues) but there aren’t enough “prospects” to fill out a team roster so they also sign “suspects” (the team doesn’t consider these players big league material) so the “prospects” have someone to play with.
Teams generally don’t tell the suspects they have no shot, which was brought home to me when I asked a minor league manager how many of his players had a legitimate chance at the Big Leagues and he said, “four.”
When I asked a player the same question he said, “All of us.”
I suggested he talk to his manager.
But teams are often wrong about the future of players – Bubba Starling was a first-round pick who played 91 games in the Big Leagues and hit .204, Mike Piazza was a 62nd-rounder who made it to the Hall of Fame – so it is possible to change your status by your play on the field.
And one minor league player tried to get his organization’s attention by going all out all the time and was diving for balls and running into walls during batting practice and when that was brought to a front-office executive’s attention he admired the kid’s energy and determination, but eventually said:
“Y’know, if he was a prospect we’d tell him to quit doing that.”
Like a lot of sports fans I originally thought players should go 100% all the time and run into walls and dive into the stands at every opportunity, but after seeing how injuries can screw up a team’s chances I changed my thinking and realized you don’t want to lose an All-Star because he he fell into the dugout when his team was losing big in a game that didn’t matter.
Now here’s a famous play by Yankee shortstop Derek Jeter:
Circumstances matter and the Yankees were playing the Red Sox and the game was tied 3-3 in the 11th inning. The year was 2004 and the Yanks finished first in the American League East, beating out the Red Sox by three games, although the Red Sox went on to win the World Series.
Knowing when to dive into the stands is part of being a professional.
When I naively repeated a Hall of Fame player’s reputation for running all out on every routine groundball, a former teammate of his said that was media bullshit and there were times the Hall of Famer jogged down to first “just like the rest of us.”
And then added: “But never when it mattered.”
Way Too Much Inappropriate Honesty
As every baseball fan knows, the Houston Astros cheated to win the 2017 World Series and when the Commissioner of Baseball, Rob Manfred, was asked about the possibility of stripping the Astros of their title, he described the World Series trophy as “a piece of metal.”
So they tell us how incredibly important the World Series is, but then when someone cheats to win one, tell us that’s no big deal.
Manfred was way too honest and had to retract his statement almost immediately, but the fact that the Astros’ General Manager and Manager were suspended, but no players were (people don’t buy tickets to watch GMs or Managers, they buy tickets to watch players) tells you everything you need to know about MLB’s priorities.
Turns out I’m not nearly as cynical about baseball as Baseball’s Commissioner.
LeBron James and FAT
According to my basketball-loving son, LeBron James has talked about “FAT” (Fuck Around Time) and said there is no FAT in the playoffs. The NBA Finals start tonight (Dallas versus Boston) and enjoy a series when all the players will or should be going all out.
Because that’s a professional athlete would do.
I love these "peeks behind the curtain" pieces.